


Different Lesson Shuffles

by Nievelion



Series: Different Tales, Different Lessons [10]
Category: Kung Fu Panda (Movies)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Assassination Attempt(s), Break Up, Brotherly Love, Childbirth, Class Issues, Corruption, Drama, Execution, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Guilt, Horror, Humor, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insanity, Invasion, Loss of Innocence, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Redemption, Romance, Romantic Friendship, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21987085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nievelion/pseuds/Nievelion
Summary: A short collection of shuffles based on theA Different Lessonuniverse. Some fill in off-screen scenes never shown during the main story, whether taking place during its timeline or exploring past history, while others relate to the novel's aftermath, emotional resolution to several of its character arcs, and setting up future events.Kung Fu Panda 2is woven slightly further into the narrative, and as lessons are learned, life moves on, and sorrows turn to joys, the tale comes full circle again.
Relationships: Crane/Mei Ling (Kung Fu Panda), Jia (OC)/Tai Lung, Po & Tai Lung, Po & Zhuang (OC), Po/Jia (OC), Shifu & Tigress (Kung Fu Panda), Tai Lung & Vachir, Tai Lung & Zhuang (OC), Tai Lung/Tigress
Series: Different Tales, Different Lessons [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529432
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

" **I'll Make A Man Out of You", _Mulan OST_**

* * *

In the center of the tournament arena, the Dragon Warrior waited.

Today was the day. Everything he had done in the last several months, all the kung fu, all the weapons training, the backbreaking, grueling work—it had all been aimed toward this moment, this achievement. Now at last he had arrived, had accomplished something he had never believed he, the son of a noodle chef, could ever do. The empire would be safe, protected, and peaceful. The Jade Palace once more had a great contingent of warriors who had come from all across China, ready to act in defense of the Valley, as it had in the days before Heian Chao's betrayal.

Striding forward so that the golden cape which Xiulan had woven for him flapped and rippled elegantly in the wind, he lifted his head to look out from beneath the brim of his _dou li_ , green eyes narrowed in determination, chin lifted high, sunlight glinting off the golden dragon woven upon the belly of his Hanfu _pao_ , as well as the unstained steel of the Sword of Heroes which glowed viridian in his right paw.

He cleared his throat, thrust out his belly, and called out in ringing cadence across the arena.

"All right. Everyone! Listen up." Before him, arrayed in line after line, the warriors he'd been training snapped to attention, in perfect alignment.

"This is it. This is what I've been preparing ya for. I've taught ya all I know, all th' Furious Five and Master Tai Lung have taught me. There's nothing more anyone in th' empire can teach ya. But don't ya worry, it's more'n enough. You're gonna make everyone proud, you're gonna earn th' greatest honors th' Emperor can give his soldiers, an' you're gonna do it 'cause you're th' best kung fu fighters this side of th' Great Wall. Now tell me: who's gonna be th' best? Who's gonna get out there an' kick th' other guys' butts? _Who's with me?_ "

Everyone was silent. A few robes rustled, a throat cleared here and there. Then, tentatively, one small, white-furred paw rose from among the ranks. Po nodded toward its owner, a bit peremptorily, but also with an undeniable sense of dread.

"Uh…Master Po?" the quiet, adorably cute voice piped up. "Can I go to the bathroom, before I kick their butts?" The little rabbit flushed in embarrassment.

Po buried his face in his paw. "Yeah. Sure. Anyone else?"

Every single hand in the crowd of young kung fu trainees went up too.

* * *

" **Halloween", by Aqua**

* * *

Very slowly, with a trembling, shaking hand, Shen Zhuang set down the mug of _shaojiu_ on the kitchen table and looked up at Po and Mei Ling with a tight throat and a wild, terrified gaze. Two sets of equally disturbed, worried eyes met his in return.

"I…I still can't believe it. How…how could anyone do such a thing? Let alone someone like Commander Vachir?" The bull shook his horned head, his voice hoarse and raspy.

The Dragon Warrior nodded, his white-furred face even more pasty than usual, starkly bathed by the flash of lightning which shone in the windows as it briefly illuminated the entire Jade Mountain. "I know what ya mean, buddy. I only ever heard th' most awesome stories about him. I mean, th' Anvil of Heaven? They're, like, th' greatest warriors in th' empire! They took out so many Mongol hordes, slaughtered th' Huns…how could someone who led such an amazin' army ever do somethin' like what happened t' th' Weis?"

On the other side of the table, Mei Ling gazed down soberly at her tightly knitted paw fingers. "You'd be surprised what kind of things warriors can be driven to in battle. The Mongols and the Huns have great codes of honor…they love their families and protect them to the death…but look at the kind of horrible atrocities they commit on our people all the time?" Her chin hardened. "And then there's Jia."

Po ignored that; after his conversation with her in the dormitory, he still couldn't believe she was the awful assassin her half-sister made her out to be, let alone that she could have murdered their father Wu Xuan so cruelly. "This…doesn't seem like that, ya know? Commander Vachir…he never would've hurt a kid, let alone something as…awful as that." He felt sick to his stomach, and had to bite down on his fist for a few moments to hold back the bile rising up. Add in the fact that, according to Zeng, there was something _dark_ about Vachir, something which seemed to have possessed him, and…

The builder nodded slowly, solemnly, his face gray beneath the fur. "Whoever did that…they wanted to make sure the Weis suffered, and didn't stop until he was ready for it to end. No parent should ever have to bury their child…but Chang and Hai, they had to hang there _for a month and a half_ , staring at his body, while their blood ran out, while they hung from those hooks…" Tears welled up, and the bull began to sob softly.

Mei Ling reached over and gently laid a paw on his shoulder. "Hey…it's okay. Yeah, Chang's blind now…and they can't ever get their son back. But at least you freed them, ended their pain, and got them here where we could get the doctor to look after them. And all by yourself, too. That's pretty hardcore, Zhuang."

The mountain cat paused, then added with what seemed extreme reluctance, "Of course…the one who did this is still out there on the loose, and all of our friends are about to face him, not knowing who he is or what he's really capable of."

For a long moment they all stared at each other, the shadows seeming even more ominous and horrifying at what they might conceal whenever they closed in around them after each lightning bolt.

Po reached for another mug. "Uh…I think I'll take one of those too, now."

"Right behind you, big guy," Mei Ling murmured fervently.

Zhuang sighed and propped his chin up in both hands, worrying his lip between his teeth. "Gods…well, all I can say is, I hope I never run into the one who was making Vachir do this. I don't ever want Yi to have to go through what the Weis did."

Lightning continued to flash and thunder rumble outside the palace. Then the panda lifted his mug to clink it against the bull's. "I'll drink to that."

* * *

" **Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)", by ABBA**

* * *

In the juniper bushes outside the Jade Palace bunkhouse, a slim, slender figure with spotted gray fur and cloaked in black peered intently through the window—fixated determinedly on the single figure sprawled on his back in bed.

It had been twenty years since she'd last seen him. Then, she and her sisters had been so close to obtaining his loyalty, convincing him to join their clan…seducing him into their beds. Xiu had always been more manipulative and nastily domineering about it, while Chun had been rather half-hearted about the whole thing, only seeming to care about the power having him at their side would have given them. But for Jia, it had been different.

Ever since Wu Xuan died…had been murdered by Xiu…and she had taken the blame for it, no one had seen her as anything but a wicked assassin with a bounty on her head. A marked woman, a woman with no future but death, violence, and crime, a woman who would one day run out of chances and choices until she was finally caught and executed by the Emperor's men. Certainly not one to take to bed for more than a casual fling. She was merciless, pitiless, ruthless like their mother. At best, no man could ever grow attached to her for fear he would soon lose her.

And then had come Tai Lung. A man who could so easily be swayed to their point of view, once he was denied the Dragon Scroll—for really, who could ever believe a saintly, pacifistic turtle like Oogway would ever give the secret to limitless power to a snow leopard with such a temper, one who was so willing to use the thousand scrolls in _any_ manner to win, no matter the cost?

He had denied them then, his golden eyes fixed only on that single prize he somehow believed, irrationally, would give him acceptance, love, and the pride of his father. It would be different now. Jia knew then he would never obtain such things…not when she'd had them stripped of her, when Xu Mei herself had drawn up the writ for her arrest.

And as soon as Heian Chao had told them who they were targeting and why, she had jumped at the chance—she would have done so for free, without a single _fen_ added to their coffers.

Narrowing her violet eyes, she peered inside the room once more…licked her lips and let out a soft moan of desire as she feasted her gaze on those sculpted, white-furred pectorals, those broad spotted shoulders, those chiseled abdominals, his face so handsome and brutish at the same time to show just how fierce and badass he was as a fighter…and of course, on the very prominent bulge in the sheets much lower down.

"You're _mine_ , Tai Tai," Jia whispered to herself harshly. "I'm not going to be alone, not anymore. Not when I've got a perfect stud like you to get me through the night."

And she leaped soundlessly from the tree branch, through the open window with its bamboo curtains…darting across the room to climb with svelte, lithe agility into Tai Lung's bed.

* * *

" **At Your Side", by The Corrs**

* * *

"You know, that damn cape is going to be the death of you one day," Tai Lung growled. "You're going to get it caught in a door, or a Mongol spear will pin it down, or you'll fall from a great height and you'll choke when it snags on a tree…"

"Oh, you're just jealous 'cause you didn't get one," Po retorted.

"No. No, I most certainly am _not_." He crossed his arms over his chest huffily; he was most adamant about that.

The two of them were facing off against the Crocodile Bandits, who had somehow gotten it into their brains to come to the Valley of Peace to get their long-delayed revenge on Mantis. Apparently, they hadn't gotten the memo about the choosing of the Dragon Warrior—or who was now Master of the Jade Palace.

As the next wave of reptilian robbers rushed toward them through the mountain pass that descended into the forests of the Valley, the snow leopard shifted instinctively into his low, signature crouch, his trailing right foot ready to whirl about in a roundhouse, his paws clenched in mirroring Tiger and Dragon Fists. But even as he struck out again and again at the swarming crocodiles, he was growling in peeved annoyance at Po.

"Now tell me: did I ask for help? Do I _look_ like an invalid?" He punched a downward-snapping jaw, nearly knocking it completely out of alignment and sending teeth flying in a spray. "I am _perfectly_ capable of handling a threat like this all by myself, you know."

"There's another bandit coming," the Dragon Warrior observed.

"Don't change the subject," Tai Lung snapped. "I think you're getting above yourself, panda."

"Tai!" Po cried, sounding panicked now. With a sudden lunge that interposed his black-and-white bulk between the snow leopard and the incoming crocodile, he whirled in a roundhouse himself, and when the villain ducked was waiting with a powerful punch of his own that sent the reptile sprawling, unconscious, at least ten yards back into the pass.

"Tacky, Po, very tacky," the spotted feline drawled. "You don't have to throw them all the way to the Great Wall, you know. Stop trying to show off…" He sighed in a deeply put-upon fashion. "Fine, as long as you're here anyway, but stick to your own bandits. You throw me off-balance."

The Dragon Warrior looked hurt. "I just need a little practice."

Tai Lung snorted. "You need instruction in etiquette, too. You don't just leap in with help; that's very bad form."

"Another bandit coming," his friend said, very politely. "Do you wanna get it, or should I?"

"Don't get snippy, panda."

Po snickered, then glanced sidelong at him. "Just for that, let's make this really interestin'. A little wager. Whoever knocks out th' leader first gets t' decide where we eat dinner tonight…while th' loser has t' pay for it."

Tai Lung grinned, showing all of his fangs, then cracked his knuckles and rolled his head to do the same to his neck. "Hope you like stir-fry, and that your cash-string's as heavy as you are. Because you…are… _on_ , panda!"

Both of them leaped into the fray at the same time.

* * *

" **I Don't Want to Wait", by Paula Cole**

* * *

Panting heavily, gasping and trying to get enough air to his lungs, Crane struggled to keep his hat fixed on his head as Mei Ling bodily dragged him through the teeming village streets. "Wait…wait—Mei! I…I still don't understand! What's going on?"

The mountain cat, by contrast, didn't seem to be out of breath in the least, and barely glanced back over her shoulder at him as she continued pushing her way between the thronging people. "No time, no time! We have to get to the temple, and we have to get there _now_!"

Sighing heavily, the waterfowl shook his head. She'd been like this the whole time they were traveling, everywhere they went in the empire, especially once they'd resumed their journey after Tai Lung and Tigress's wedding. It was as if she was determined to be in two or three places at once, to rush endlessly around China and eliminate every single danger, every threat to peace and stability, until Po, the Five, and even the Emperor's troops had nothing to do but sit around twiddling their fingers and play mahjong all day.

He loved her with every bit of his heart, he truly did. But did she have to be so…controlling? Couldn't she let anyone else make decisions, act on their own, be a hero for a change?

By the time they reached the steps leading to the temple entrance, Crane was fit to be tied. And for once, he was determined to put his foot down. "Mei… _Mei!_ " He slid to a stop and literally dug in his talons until the mountain cat was forced to halt between the _shi_ lions guarding the doorway.

"Now look, I know your heart's in the right place and you're doing everything you can to give Jia a chance to show everybody she's changed. But I'm not going a step farther 'til you tell me—what is going on here? Who would attack the temple?"

The mistress of the thousand scrolls put her free paw on her other hip and regarded him candidly. She somehow looked both amused and admiring at the same time. "That's sweet, really. And believe me, I love knowing you're getting a backbone and standing up for yourself for a change. But you really have to trust me on this one. Okay?"

Crane clamped his bill shut as he felt his ire rising. "Fine. But this is the last time. After this, you discuss everything with me before we do anything, got it?"

Mei smiled beatifically, something which he didn't like at all. "You help me out here at the temple, and I promise we'll do everything together from now on." He eyed her suspiciously, but she was already pulling him up the steps.

Inside, the quiet, dim stonework of the sanctuary was undisturbed by any sound, let alone those of battle. In fact the place seemed to be utterly deserted, save for a solitary Shaolin monk standing at the altar at the far end—a shaven-maned lion who looked somehow vaguely familiar. Incense filled the air, and more distantly the sound of chanting and prayers, but otherwise that was it.

"Mei? What is the meaning of—"

And she had whirled him about to plant a fervent kiss on his bill.

By the time it had ended and he could breathe again, the mountain cat was gazing at him intently, even as she also gave a small, sardonic smile. "I don't want to wait any longer, Jien. I don't want to wait until we're old and grey, or one of us is on our deathbed, or until every threat is gone, or any other arbitrary point we've decided on to put this off has come and gone. You took forever to tell me how you feel, I couldn't spit out how I felt either, and we both dragged this out long enough as it is. You and I are getting married. Now. Today. No ifs, ands, or buts. Got it?"

For a very long moment he stared at her in stupefaction, throat working soundlessly, while his gaze flicked from her, to the observing lion who seemed far too amused for his own good, then down to her paws clasping his wing feathers tightly. _Why you conniving little…gods, I love you._

Crane sighed…smiled lopsidedly…and then nodded as he returned her kiss (much more sedately). And as he let her guide him down the sanctuary toward the monk, he only said two words:

"Yes, ma'am."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a few things to note. The _pao_ with the dragon on it, the cape, the hat, and the Sword of Heroes is all part of a bit of concept art of Po as the Dragon Warrior in _The Art of Kung Fu Panda_. So once again, I decided to bring it back. (It also was referenced in Chapter 2 of "The Tale of Po and Jia", and of course appears quite memorably during the climax of KFP3.) The scene itself, however, was (it turns out) subconsciously inspired by one with Sokka in the earliest episodes of _Avatar: the Last Airbender_. Snippets two and three are obviously scenes we never saw but which actually took place during ADL; please don't kill me for the awful foreshadowing/Tempting Fate bit with Zhuang, at least you got to see him alive again. The bit where Tai teased Po about the cape is, of course, a shout-out to _The Incredibles_. And his exchange with Po after that is aping a David Eddings scene between Garion and Belgarath. Lastly, yes that lion monk who is going to marry Crane and Mei is Achal Balaji from “Hungry Like the Wolf”.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

" **Million Tears", by Groove Coverage**

* * *

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

He could see everything as clear as the day it had happened, in the stark light of that morning what seemed a lifetime ago—the wreckage that had once been stalls of noodles with battered woks scattered across the cobblestones, the burned-out casings of hundreds of fireworks, the piles of rubble and clouds of dust in the air from the many buildings which had been cracked, crumbled, or outright collapsed by the battle, the massive crater which had formed when Tai Lung had sent him hurtling down toward the ground with the mighty blow of one foot. He could also see the house through which the snow leopard had been thrown on the recoil from his own belly punch, the one that had rippled up through Po's body and sent both his fists flying at his opponent.

That wasn't what was wrong, though. Nor the fact he was still fighting, continuing to use the feline's own strength and rage against him to defeat him. It was that instead of staring in stunned shock and excited disbelief at what he had somehow managed to do…he was grinning at Tai Lung. Not just any grin—a nasty, vicious, cocky smirk.

It didn't leave his face throughout any of the following blows. The whole time he was wiping the ground with the snow leopard…as he punched him in the head, the shoulder, the chest; stomped on his foot until his toes crunched; caught him by the other foot and sent him hurling about like a festival toy on a string; whipped his spotted tail about so that the feline bit down hard upon it—as each of these humiliating blows was dealt, Po could see himself snickering, chuckling, sneering in contempt until his face was twisted into a caricature of its usual amiable self. When Tai Lung was sent bouncing down the street into another house, flipping head over heels to smash again and again into the street, instead of wincing and squeezing his eyes shut in sympathy, he was laughing out loud!

And when the ex-convict came barreling toward him one last time, only to be sent bouncing off of the panda's massive belly and sent rocketing skyward, he actually clapped his paws gleefully, did a ridiculous little jig, and then stood back well out of range for the snow leopard's smashing landing.

Standing there in the street, under the shade of a store awning, the Dragon Warrior could only watch himself helplessly, his feet somehow rooted in place, as the battered, bloody, ragged shape of the scourge of the Valley crawled out from the hole he'd broken in the cobblestones, staggering toward his adversary. "You _can't_ …defeat me! You're just a big…fat… _panda_!"

"I'm not _a_ big, fat panda." Even his voice was different, dark and utterly cold. At least…he was sure that wasn't how he'd sounded. Was it? "I'm _the_ big, fat panda!"

_No, it wasn't like this!_

"Th-the Wuxi Finger Hold?" Tai Lung stood there, held in place only by the panda's black-furred fingers gripping his pinky—and somehow, the nervousness, fear, and outright terror on his face and in his voice were far worse than he remembered. He was cringing before his enemy!

"Oh, you know this hold?" Po said—softly, silkily, dangerously, a barely audible whisper.

"You're bluffing…you're bluffing!" the snow leopard stuttered. "Shifu didn't teach you that."

"Nope." Those golden eyes lit up with exceedingly intense relief—only to widen in horror as the panda smiled in a feral grin that exposed his teeth. His voice dropped even lower, becoming so malicious Po didn't recognize it as his own at all. "I figured it out. _Skadoosh_."

The finger came down…and with a scream of excruciating agony, the snow leopard exploded—fur, flesh, and muscle shriveling, peeling back, and dissolving before his eyes, leaving only a gap-jawed skull and bare bones which also burst apart, all of it disintegrating into golden _chi_ that blasted outward in a growing ring and dome to wash across the Valley. And through it all he could hear his own gleeful, mocking laughter…

" ** _NOOOOOOO!_** "

Screaming wildly in full-blown terror into the night, Po sat up in bed. Clapping his paws to his face, he tried to block out the nightmarish images, shook himself, gasped and shuddered until he nearly hyperventilated, choking in hiccupping sobs until he couldn't hold it in anymore—diving for his dormitory window and retching into the juniper bushes outside.

He didn't know how long he hung there—it felt like he must have ejected three or four previous meals—but by the time he finished he dangled weakly from the frame, his head light and whirling woozily, his jaw trembling, his mouth dry, and soft whimpers escaping from his throat. No. No, it had not happened that way, it could never have happened that way. He would never have done such a thing, could never…

_You didn't have to use that hold, ya know_.

**_But…Tai was gonna kill everyone in the Valley! He already tried to kill the Five, Master Shifu, me…_ **

_So? You'd beaten him. He was down for the count. All you did was try an' use the ultimate_ chi _move on a guy who was already about to collapse. Talk about overkill_.

**_I…I didn't really know what it'd do. I thought it'd just knock him out._ **

_How could you not know? When Master Shifu told ya himself? When ya know every kung fu story backwards an' forwards? Ya knew damn well what it did. An' ya used it anyway, 'cause ya got all caught up in bein' the prophesied Chosen One_. _You were no better than Tai was!_

**_No…no, I had to…I didn't have any other choice, it was necessary…_ **

_Was it? Was it really? Or were ya just impulsive? And so what ya didn't really kill him. Ya left him unconscious in that crater, purified, when ya went t' hug your dad an' then go check on Shifu. But what if you hadn't? What if you really had vaporized him? Would ya still have skipped off happy as a clam like that?_

Wiping the back of his paw shakily across his mouth, he staggered back and sat down hard on the bed, staring off bleakly into space. He didn't know how long he sat like that, eyes wide but focused on nothing, his paw rubbing over the wound on his throat that would eventually become a scar—the wound that would have taken his life if Tai Lung had not staunched the bleeding, which he could not have done if Po had killed him. Killed his best friend… Only when the breeze stirred and rattled the shutters did he look up…look up to see a few pink petals dancing in the stirring air, air that was heady with the scent of peaches.

Before he could even properly phrase a thankful prayer to Oogway for this timely warning, the door to his room abruptly banged open and a tall, muscular figure stood there, a hulking silhouette in the shadows, and then a very familiar voice hissed at him. "Panda? What in bloody blazes d'you think you're doing?! You nearly woke up half the Palace!"

He didn't know how he crossed the intervening space; suddenly he was there, tightly embracing Tai Lung as he buried his sobbing face in the snow leopard's white chest fur, soaking it with his tears. "Oh thank the gods! You're alive…you're alive, buddy!"

The spotted feline seemed absolutely speechless for several long moments, even as his arm wrapped around Po's shoulders and his paw mechanically patted his heaving back. "Er…um. Yes. Yes, I am. Was there any question of that?"

But Po ignored him, only continued to weep tears of relief and shame into his friend's chest. _Never. I won't ever let anything like that happen. I almost made an awful mistake. Never again. I'm the Dragon Warrior, not a monster…I'm not…_

* * *

" **Ghost Love Score", by Nightwish**

* * *

_The dream was always the same…except this time, it wasn't._

_There was no warning; one moment he was crouching in enforced penitence (or more likely, subservience) before the rhino, eyes fixed irrevocably on the floor before him; the next, he was suddenly soaked from forehead to groin in ice-cold water. If he could have, he'd have gasped hugely (and probably swallowed enough water to choke on)—even in the enclosed, windless interior of Chorh-Gom, it felt as if every inch of his exposed flesh had suddenly been embedded by needle-sharp spears of ice._

_He could only let out a hissing breath, all his restraints allowed, the bare modicum of autonomic functions to keep him living…but he could already feel the water freezing in his fur, and while he had no control over them, all of his muscles at once began twitching and shivering in a vain attempt to warm him._

_He heard it in the darkness…its leather ties loosening and rustling against the rhino's mail skirt as he unhooked it from his belt. He saw its silhouette shifting about, looking like some many-tailed, living thing. And as it lifted into the light, he saw that each of the lumpy knots and sharp spikes adorning it had telltale tufts of silvery-gray fur caught on them…each was a dark, sickly, brownish-red, a perpetual stain._

_The indigo trousers came down, yanked into a rumpled heap around his knees. He flushed in shame—not because he had anything to be ashamed of as a male, but because he knew Vachir would leave him just like this, for hours after the whipping had ended, his naked haunches in full view of all the guards watching over him as the blood flowed profusely… He could already feel it now, the lingering phantom pain soon to become all too genuine, and he cast a desperate prayer to the gods._

**_Baba…please. I'm sorry. I'll do anything. Anything you want. Just get me out of here. Please! I'm begging you! Oh gods…Baba…someone…save me…_ **

_"That's a good kitten…huh, what do you know, you do bleed after all!" Every time he said it the same, as if it were an astonishing new discovery. "And here I thought you just had ice in your veins and a heart of stone…"_

_And in the background, the same loathsome, twisted, ugly sentiments expressed by the rest of the Anvil, as demeaning, sadistic, and depraved as those of their commander._

" _Whaddaya think the commander's gonna do to him today?"_

" _Think he'll do it? I bet he wants to; I wanna! Watching him like that, day after day…I'm gettin' anxious. And having those pants down is too damn tempting…he's got a nice, tight ass…"_

" _Whatever he does, I just love gettin' to watch…"_

_His fear, his shame, his self-loathing vanished, exploded into wrath, were consumed by the white-hot rage he felt building within, and as if those emotions had been unleashed by his_ chi _to scour the pinnacle around him, suddenly Vachir, the guards, everything vanished, leaving him alone in the shadows…alone except for something floating down from high above, ghosting on an unseen breath of wind, something that gleamed and shone like moonbeams woven with silver in the flickering torchlight. A blessing from on high, the answer to his prayers after twenty years of them being utterly ignored…a single goose feather flipping, twirling, dropping downward…_

_It landed on the stone before him, just within reach of his tail, the only part of him he could move aside from his face, and very slowly, cruelly, he smiled…brought the feather close, scooped hidden against his knees by a single twitch of the thickly furred, spotted appendage…_

_Once, he could not have done it. Once, long ago, he would not have waited, would have simply lashed out, raged in wild, uncontrolled insanity at anyone and anything that had harmed and imprisoned him. But after years of plotting his escape and revenge, day after day carefully calculating just what he would do and how he would do it, he had the patience of Buddha…which he would need to outsmart Oogway himself, to unlock the mechanism holding him trapped in a living death._

_Click. Click. Click. One by one, with agonizing slowness and pinpoint accuracy, he unlocked each tumbler, flicked his tail again, shifting the feather from one angle and depth to another so as to push and unlatch each set of weights blocking him from access to the next layer of the shell. He had never seen anything like the shell in his life, certainly had not seen any blueprints of its inner workings—but he didn't have to._

_For although he had seemed unconscious, or else dead to the world and lost in his fury and despair, he'd actually been awake the entire time the turtle had locked him into it…had very carefully and precisely marked each click, each interlocking part, and knew exactly how to reverse them, to set himself free. He'd kept the knowledge sealed away for twenty years, burned into his brain with the same fires that kept him fixated on the Dragon Scroll, on his hatred and resentment against those who had wronged him…waiting until the means to employ them fell into his possession. As it had now._

_With one last flick and slap of his tail, he felt the final lock give way. There was a long pause, pregnant with meaning…and then slowly, like a cramp letting go, with a pressurized hiss of air, each of the jade-carved needles released, extending from their seatings to leave his pressure points free and without stimulation. He couldn't help himself—he gasped in utter relief, even a certain amount of ecstasy, as for the first time in twenty years he could move, could feel, could sense the cold of the frigid mountain fastness. His breath fogged before his face as he softly panted…and he'd never been so delighted to be shivering._

_One after the other, he cracked his knuckles…clenched his fists…and then with a loud, sharp series of reports, every needle shot from its seating with the flex of his biceps and shoulders, and the individual metallic pieces of the shell, modeled after Oogway's plastron, burst apart and shattered, leaving him free. Free._

_Somewhere in the distance he could hear shouts and screams, the alarm bell of Chorh-Gom that had never once been rung summoning the garrison to their stations, but he ignored it all. Strength, strength like he had not known in twenty years, strength built from concentrating his_ chi _and pouring every ounce of willpower and anger into it, flooded through his muscles, through every inch of his body, and he felt—no, he **knew—** he could do anything. _

_Nothing would stop him now, nothing would keep him from returning to the Valley and claiming what was rightfully his. Surging to his feet, stretching himself to the full extent his boulder-strung chains would allow, he roared—not in defiance or rage, or at least not only in these, but in sheer dominance and the determined, insatiable desire for conquest._

_In the near distance, he heard the creaking of crossbow arms, the stretching of bowstrings, and knew the sentinels on watch had managed to bring their weapons to bear on him at last from the ledges overlooking the pinnacle. He sneered to himself, even as he twisted and turned instinctively. Their first shots were well-aimed, he gave them that, and deadly to anyone with less skill than he. As it was, he just barely managed to dodge and avoid them, but dodge he did…and as each spear-sized arrow, big enough to completely impale him should he miscalculate, passed him by to stab into the rock, he found himself surrounded by a quivering cage of crosshatched wooden stakes. But that could hardly imprison him, it was as flimsy as a tower of mahjong tiles erected around him. And the very weapons which the Anvil of Heaven believed would strike him dead would instead be the means of his full release. He chuckled darkly._

_The next arrow zoomed in, straight and true, and this time as he twisted, he brought his right paw around, angled and turned up quite precisely—and the barbed steel tip smashed right into the mechanism of the manacle he wore there. It fell away with a clang of metal on stone, the chain yanked free and jerking about like a demented viper as the gigantic boulder at the other end fell away into the darkness far below._

_He didn't hear it land, didn't care—truly, once the tortoise shell was gone he had barely felt its presence, more like a training disc strapped to his wrist than anything else—instead only flexing his other arm to smash the boulder's twin against the side of the pinnacle. The sudden pressure on the manacle snapped it, too, and now he was fully unencumbered._

_Another string drew back, another bow was nocked on the ledge behind and above him, and his ear twisted about adroitly to catch the sound. With blinding speed he used a Crane deflection strike, sending the arrow harmlessly upward, only to completely flip it around as it fell back to earth, then leap upward…his Dragon Kick sending the arrow straight back at its source. There was a satisfying crunch and splintering of wood as the ballista completely shattered, matched only by the looks of terror and disbelief on the rhinos' homely faces._

_He didn't stop there, of course; with unerring precision he leaped again and again from the rock, striking out with each foot in turn to wrench the impaled arrows from the pinnacle around him, only to instantly turn his kicks into reverse roundhouses, sending those missiles, too, back to their points of origin. In less than a minute, all the ballistae on that ledge had been smashed, their operators dead or fled, the arrows quivering and extending from the wall in a staggered diagonal, perfect for ascending to the prison's heights. And he'd left one behind on the pinnacle, as a launching point._

_The snow leopard cracked his neck to work out the final kink, then leaped and sprang—from the arrow beside him, to the first he'd fired, then upward, ascending the side of the abyss as if it were a mere exercise in the Jade Palace kwoon. **Level one accomplished.**_

_Of course, Vachir was shouting further orders, and high above on the angled bridges and catwalks of Chorh-Gom, the milling rhinos were doing their futile parts to see that he did not make it out of the prison alive. One after another, he heard bows cranking, arrows rattling into place, strings quivering with tension, and as he reached the final spear in the line he looked up to see a truly enormous hail of arrows raining down on him from above. He almost shook his head; for anyone else, such a thing would be a truly ridiculous amount of overkill. For him, it wasn't nearly enough._

_Letting his feet slip off the wooden haft, he dropped down and caught hold of it with both paws, flawlessly executing a full swing around the spear to build momentum, then let go at the zenith of the arc to send himself hurtling upwards. After what felt like an eternity but was less than a minute, he caught hold of the underside of the wooden elevator which the guards had cravenly (but wisely) clambered aboard when Vachir had called the retreat to their sentry points—and which now shielded him completely from the arrowfall. **Always use your enemy's strengths and attributes against him**. **The simplest way to win a battle is to end it before it begins, by making your enemy defeat himself.**_

_Oogway had taught him that. The irony was delicious._

_He felt the elevator tilt, felt the tension giving way in the chain and heard its links beginning to separate the moment one of the Anvil began to chop through his support. He almost nodded approvingly; it's what he would do, in his place. But of course he wasn't there anymore—as soon as it started to drop, he was leaping, springing upward to cling concealed in the shadows cloaking the underside of the platform which had lowered the elevator, his claws sinking quite securely into the wood._

_Through the hole where the elevator would have nestled into place, he could see a pair of rhinos grinning at each other inanely and clinking their axes together, clearly congratulating each other on how their prisoner had been so easily defeated, sent plummeting into the depths along with the elevator. Now he did roll his eyes in disgust. **Fools**._

_They were still laughing when he leaped silently up from the hole in an upside-down split, taking them out of action with strikes to chin and breastbone respectively. He didn't even bother to look at them as they landed, only springing to release the windlass handle and grasp the broken end of chain, gathering his quadriceps for another extended leap that took him out in a long arc around the platform, the extra momentum allowing him to fly upward and reach the stone bridge above him when he released the chain. **'Your enemy's overconfidence is his undoing.' Are you watching, 'Master'? That goes for you too, you know.**_

_He only had time to land on the span and strike his signature stance before a contingent of the Anvil came surging down the bridge toward him, axes brandished, unintelligent eyes glinting with hate and contempt. But it was more than time enough. He dodged a crescent blade, flipped and inverted backwards, kicked a guard squarely in the stomach so that he lost its contents in a rather pungent mess, punched another in the chest hard enough his ribs cracked, then struck out quite precisely at another incoming axe. Like all metal, it had its weak points, its stresses and flaws, and if he could target a nerve strike to avoid stopping a heart…_

_Yes. The weapon shattered in a spray of gleaming filaments, and while the rhino who'd held it stared in dumb incomprehension becoming realization, Tai Lung followed up with a forward kick that, naturally enough, sent him flying backwards—right into the soldier behind him, and the one behind him, in an extremely satisfying domino effect that ended with the entire contingent collapsed and groaning on the balcony fronting the door to the keep. **Level two. Next?**_

_As he leaped through the door and up the stairwell, his passing dousing the crimson flames of the torches to leave the bridge in the cold, blue-violet darkness, he could hear the guards on the bridge above slamming their bodies against the wooden panel barring his way out of the tower, and he grinned fiendishly to himself. He wondered how many there were; he wondered if they truly thought any amount of men was enough to stop him. Not that they had any other real choice at this juncture, and if matters were otherwise he might have had a drop of pity, a glimmer of sympathy for them, but it was truly pathetic._

_The emperor and his generals had thought a thousand men to be more than sufficient, had even attempted to cut back on the size of the garrison several times over the years—something he'd had no trouble learning, seeing as each such missive had been met by Vachir's furious bellows of their contents before shredding the parchment. But Vachir knew what Tai Lung himself did—a thousand wasn't taking him seriously. He had mastered the thousand scrolls, he was a force of nature now, and he would not be denied his destiny, his freedom…his revenge._

_They tried to hold him back, they truly did, but in the end the force of his charge and the power in his phenomenal muscles smashed through hinges, locks, and doorplates, toppling the giant panel onto the guards attempting to brace it. Before any of them could crawl out from beneath the door, he was leaping again, launching into his mid-air double twist that violently and rapidly sent two guards spinning by neck and waist, flinging them aside like rag dolls._

_On the bridge itself, another group charged him, this one armed with maces rather than axes, and his eyes widened as he recognized who led it—Bataar, the guard who had always been most insistent on getting a good view of his bare haunches, and expressed repeated interest in getting his horny, callused hands upon them. His heart went cold inside his chest, and something seemed to snap within his skull._

_Suddenly he was moving again, without even thinking about it—in fact all thought was gone, lost in instinctive, violent, animalistic action. He snatched a mace from the nearest guard, then immediately smashed its spiked head into the side of his face; then a second rhino, a third, a fourth, each of them seeming to hang frozen in mid-air, or moving in slow motion thanks to the rapidity of his own leaps and flips, each of them left with shattered skulls, broken jaws, dislocated shoulders and hips._

_At last he rolled and twisted into position before Bataar himself. The rhino only had time for one horrified stare from his beady eyes as he realized just what was coming, and why—then the mace was inverted and swung upward with crushing force, stuffed into his gaping mouth, back down toward his throat, just as he'd wanted to do to Tai Lung's…_

_Red overlay his vision, and a venomous snarl, more beast than man, emerged from the snow leopard's muzzle, and with one violent kick to the chest he sent Bataar hurtling upwards, the mace still driven into his gap-jawed face, disappearing into the shadows._

_But losing the weapon meant nothing. He only turned to the remaining soldiers barring the way to the next doorway of the keep and laid into them with savage, uncontrolled fury…his kung fu dissolving into wild, terrifying fighting no better than that found on the streets or in a common bandit's den…leaping, smashing, tearing, slashing, claws rending leathery flesh, teeth sent flying, blood spurting in thick sprays as he actually sank his teeth in, ripping out throats, stomachs, hearts, groins… An unholy joy of rapturous vengeance surged through him, just like…_

" ** _No! Please no, I beg of you! What did we ever do to you, Tai Lung?"_**

" ** _Don't kill my husband…my children and I will starve without him!"_**

" ** _You were supposed to be our protector…our defender…our chosen hero! How could you do this?!"_**

_Flames, leaping and licking along wooden walls, curling under roof tiles and shingles, consuming one house after another with a wicked, demonic chuckle as if it were truly alive. Screams coming from within, begging to be let loose and saved, but he ignored them all. Fists pounding on another door, a man's voice shouting, squealing in fear, tiny eyes wide and drooling mouth working frantically as he battered against the door until his fists bled from the splinters. A fiery brand in his other paw, held high so its light flickered in the dirty glass before the pig's face, while he laughed in malicious, diabolical delight and ignited the soldier's funeral pyre…_

_The wolven elder, hauled up by the front of his robes…and then, after baring his fangs in a heartless, cruel grin, Tai Lung brandishing the claws of his other paw and literally ripping his throat out. The body tossed aside in a bloody heap on the cobblestones…and the crying cub only given a contemptuous sneer and a scornful glare to send him scuttling out of sight._

_The bridge where he'd stood his ground against the temple guardsmen, never letting a single soldier pass…each face superimposed with those of one of the Anvil of Heaven, his enraged voice screaming out Vachir's name, Bataar's, that of every guard he'd learned and memorized, so that the shimmering, crystalline waters of the river had become strewn with groaning bodies, discarded weapons and pieces of armor, and swirling clouds of blood like spilled scarlet ink, the gory slaughter one he reveled in, one that made him laugh with chilling satisfaction and roar his triumph to the smoky skies._

_The well where he had hurled the bucket about like a windmill and sent scores of hapless villagers flying across the square...including an innocent elephant sow who, when he saw her attempting to hide in the alley's shadows, he'd deliberately wrenched from her feet and sent smashing into the side of the building, slamming her head into the wall again and again…_

_The bull guardsman, sent flying to collapse in the street, crumpled at an unnatural angle, his neck having snapped deliciously when he landed. His wife, weeping piteously over her fallen man, her tears staining his tunic...looking up at him abruptly with grief, pain, and an almost savage hatred in her eyes, while he only grinned sadistically and splayed his blood-stained claws at her, licking each clean with salacious, suggestive slowness, then turned for the stairs to claim his scroll at long last…_

Letting out a strangled, terrified scream, Tai Lung sat bolt upright in bed, scrambling about madly in the sheets—and as the nightmare images refused to leave his mind's eye, he barely made it to the washbasin in time before violently emptying his stomach. Even after there was no more to bring up, he stood heaving and retching weakly, paws gripping the sides of the basin until they cracked under the strain, his white-furred chest soaked to the skin with clammy sweat.

No. _No._ It hadn't been like that! He had not truly enjoyed the rampage…there had not been such repugnant glorying in the fear and pain of his victims, he had not deliberately killed that elephant, threatened that wolven boy, leered so disgustingly at Xiulan…

But he had still done the deeds. He had, in fact, enjoyed slaughtering every member of the Anvil of Heaven that had come up against him. And somehow, despite what he had learned during his return to the ruined prison, despite how he had come to regret the innocent deaths and mourned what might have been for him and the grand army that had held him, he feared if he had to do it over again, he would, and with just as much relish and bestial hatred.

And the surge of adrenaline in his muscles, the bloodshed, the violence, the indiscriminate killing…that had been the same, had on some level felt the same, even if he had not been targeting villagers or guards specifically. Even if it had happened long before he was ever tortured at Chorh-Gom, he had treated those who mocked him, scorned him, and rejected him with just as much cruelty, pain, and death. He had been a monster.

He still was a monster, and always would be.

"Tai! _Tai!_ " The voice from the doorway nearly made the snow leopard leap out of his pelt, but he knew even before he turned and saw the black-and-white face staring at him who it would belong to. "What's wrong, buddy?"

Instinct made him clam up, seal it away; no one could help, and no could know his weakness, his vulnerability. "Nothing...it's nothing, Po, I'm fine."

He didn't blame the panda for the skeptical look he gave him. "Are you sure? 'Cause I can..." He started to turn to leave, though whether to fetch Viper or Shifu, or head to the kitchen for 'comfort food', he had no idea.

And he wouldn't allow it, either way. " _No_ , panda!" His paws squeezed convulsively, and he shook as he forced his voice to modulate, to keep from disturbing the peace of the Valley night. "I mean—Po. I'm fine. Really..."

Never mind that he was the farthest from fine it was possible to be. Physically of course he was mostly healed, save for the deep bruises along his side and the constant ache in the shoulder he'd dislocated. But mentally, emotionally… It had been two weeks since Chorh-Gom, and for almost every night of the journey back, the dreams had haunted him anew, dreams he had thought banished once Oogway's beneficent aura had been lain upon him and the Valley, once he had accepted Shifu's offer and accepted who he had once been and could be again—a good, honorable hero.

None of that seemed to matter now, Chao's power still lay across his mind and soul like a greasy, foul taint he could never expunge…and on top of the rampage, now, he also dreamed of his torture and escape, the suffering and pain and bloody violence blending together, suggesting to him that for all his protestations of having changed, of seeking redemption, he was no different now than he had ever been…

Po had stopped in the doorway, but he still eyed his friend with concern and caring. "Oh…okay... Just checkin' on..."

Without warning, another voice spoke, this one gruff and slightly accusing, but also rather faint and hoarse. "Nothing? Well I don't think it's nothing."

Turning again, the snow leopard flinched without even thinking about it, then stared in mingled resentment and worry at the massive figure that had come in behind the Dragon Warrior. A figure which leaned on crutches, had bandages wrapped everywhere—around his ears, the entire upper half of his body…and over what would otherwise be bloody, empty eye sockets. "Chang...I'd almost forgotten...you should be in bed, you know."

The battered elephant might present a sad image now, but he still snorted softly. "I'm the one who's gonna decide when I rest. Your Master Mei Ling, and Zhuang, they've taken real good care of me." The ex-foreman paused, his next words softer still. "Better than I deserve. Anyway, I may be blind, but I'm not stupid."

As usual, Po was a bit slow on the uptake. "Tai...what's going on?"

Tai Lung didn't know how to answer the panda, if he even could, but Chang saved him the trouble. Oddly, although his words seemed the same derogatory, mocking ones as before, their tone was completely different now—quiet, solemn, almost emotionless. "See, the thing is, Dragon Warrior, Tai Tai here…unless I miss my guess, he's been having a real doozie of a bad dream." His tusked head shifted, turning his face toward where the snow leopard stood and his voice had emanated. Somehow he had a feeling that if the elephant had still had his eyes, they would have been looking at him with understanding and sympathy. "Haven't you?"

Po blinked, then actually gave a small smile and wiped his brow with one paw. "Phew! I thought it was something worse." Normally, Tai Lung would have punched him for that dismissal, except he knew that the panda had no idea his former enemy had even been having bad dreams, let alone their subject. And he was also distracted by the elephant and the stiff, silent way he stood that had nothing to do with his injuries.

Chang spoke again, and now his tone had emotion to it…doleful, bitter, and even a touch remorseful. And…was that fear? "It _is_ something worse, panda. You really think a master warrior, and a cocky son of a bitch, like Tai Lung would care about a normal dream?" Again he turned his bandaged face toward the snow leopard. "It's him, isn't it? He's the reason."

While Po was staring from one to the other of them in confusion, Tai Lung opened his mouth, and closed it. He'd been about to admit that no, it wasn't Chao at all, merely his own guilty conscience haunting him. But now he wasn't so sure. The _chi_ wizard had employed hatred, vengeance, anger, jealousy, every negative emotion he could think of. Why not guilt? And even if Chao were not responsible for the dreams, he'd had a hand in the rampage…and it was because of this conflict that all such fears and self-doubt had come to the fore to begin with.

"Is it true, Tai?" the Dragon Warrior ventured at last. Unsurprisingly, he sounded both concerned…and frightened. Maybe he wasn't that lacking in insight after all.

"I...I…" How could he admit such a thing…admit the truth…admit what he never wanted Po, let alone the old blowhard Chang, to know?

Po stepped toward him, rested his paw on his shoulder, and managed a small, heartfelt smile. "Hey, hey. Take it easy, Tai...you don't have to—"

Tai Lung swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and shook his head. "No...Po, thank you, but it's time…"

"For?" The panda shot him a quizzical look.

The snow leopard glanced behind Po, at the glass eyes of the stuffed snow leopard sitting atop his dresser, and above it the portrait of himself and Oogway from a lifetime ago. He knew this was what the turtle would want. He knew if anyone would trust, understand, and offer unconditional support and friendship, it would be Po. And unless he missed his guess, after the horrible experiences with the possessed Vachir in his own basement, Chang might finally be ready to let his vendetta go…might have come to see who the real enemy was, to accept that the scourge of the Valley might be trying to change, might be just as haunted and horrified by what had happened as his victims had been.

"For me to be honest," he said at last with a heavy sigh. "I—I can't let this consume me. Not now. And you have a right to know." To know everything...not only the dreams, what he had done during his rampage...but what had been done to him at Chorh-Gom as well. It had been kept inside him for too long.

For a long minute or two, the room was silent, and then Po squeezed his shoulder and nodded, turning toward the door and offering his arm to the blind elephant. "Okay. Sounds like a good idea. I'll just get Chang here back to bed, if that's all right, sir, and then I'll see about rustling you up somethin' soothing in the kitchen, while we talk about it."

"If you don't mind," Chang said before Tai Lung could reply, "I'd like to join you. I have a feeling this is something I need to hear, as much as he needs to say." It was amazing how much meaning could be conveyed by that blank, bandaged face as it turned toward him.

"Care to make that three?" From the hallway beyond the elephant, a soft voice spoke in the shadows, and a massive, horned silhouette loomed. When it stepped into the moonlight, it resolved itself into the worried, sympathetic form of Shen Zhuang.

And suddenly, despite the memories and horrors still filling his mind, Tai Lung smiled slightly. Because he knew everything would be all right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first shuffle was inspired partly by Ilien's amazing "Book of Changes", particularly the part early on where she had Po thinking about how and why he'd used the Wuxi Finger Hold on Tai Lung and what it would have meant if, while acting so smug and cocky, he'd actually gone ahead and killed Tai with it. I had always been bothered by that scene anyway, since indeed Tai was pretty much down for the count at that point, anything else was overkill (he clearly was attacking out of rage over the scroll being blank, not to achieve anything), and Po's expression and voice were just rather unlikable and not at all in keeping with his character otherwise. (Witness how different he was with Shen, for example.) 
> 
> So I think it important to show just how wrong Po was to act that way by showing what the consequences of his actions would otherwise have been—basically, since I had the finger hold purge Tai of his rage and insanity but otherwise leave him mostly unharmed, show what Shifu's version of the hold would have done. Grisly, eh? In the end this shuffle lets me get to have my cake and eat it too, by reconciling what many assumed (prior to KFP3) did happen to Tai with what happened to him in my story. And a chance to include the horror imagery that I'm so good at. ;)
> 
> Speaking of, we come to the second shuffle. You will note first off that I straight out copy-pasted the bits from Chapter 29 of both Tai's torture at Chorh-Gom and his acts during the rampage (though note how the latter were altered to be worse than reality, just as happened with Po in his dream). That gave me more time and space to focus on the rest of the text which...wow. I can't tell you how fun it was, both getting to write Tai Lung when he was at one of his darkest but most badass moments and actually getting to narrate a scene directly from the movie that I don't think we've ever seen gone into in detail in fanfics. 
> 
> I wish I could have covered the entire escape sequence, but what happened when he reached the heights of the prison didn't really fit where I wanted to go with the tale. What I did cover was more than sufficient for my own enjoyment, and I particularly liked getting to reference kung fu philosophy he learned from Oogway which he was now using to make his escape. For anyone who has read _Art of Kung Fu Panda_ , you may also notice I made reference (both in the dousing of the torches so the light changed from red to blue, and in Tai Lung's thoughts about levels) to the dev team's concept of the escape sequence as being like going through levels in a video game.
> 
> As for what happens once he wakes up...in a flaw, or at least an omission, commonly brought up by my readers, I had never really devoted much time to how exactly Chang changed his tune on Tai Lung. Part of this was me thinking it was rather obvious that after what he experienced in his basement, he wouldn't support anything "Vachir" was doing, including going after Tai...but that doesn't explain how his own feelings toward the snow leopard would change. It was also a case of not being sure exactly what _did_ happen to change him, and why. I also felt crunched for time as far as moving the fic on to its climax, that basically events were moving along faster than the characters themselves could keep up with, thanks to Chao and the Sisters, and so there wasn't time to really dwell on such things. And since I did cover Chang and Tai reaching out to each other during the extended epilogue, this addressed that issue. But...I realized looking back there should have been something more, and if I had for example split the humongous Chapter 32, there might have been time and space for this scene there. Still, it may be best it waited until it did, since some of the thoughts and decisions I came to when writing this I'm not sure if I could have the first time around.
> 
> So now you have at least more of an inkling how and why Chang was able to forgive Tai. (And a brief reference to note whatever happened to the stuffed toy and painting which came from Oogway's cupboard; I always meant to include that, but since there was never a reason to go to Tai's room doing the story...)


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

" **That Don't Impress Me Much", by Shania Twain**

* * *

"Now, Tigress, I know this may be hard for you," Viper said as soothingly and gently as she could, "but you need to relax. Fighting the contractions is not going to help."

From the bed, a very distinctive and familiar growl sounded, one that would have made anyone else freeze in mortal fear; as it was, everyone in the room, from the doctor and Mantis to Po, who was tending the basin of hot water being used to prepare and soak towels for the expectant mother, did react with winces, flinches, and open cringing. Even Tai Lung, hovering worriedly and beginning to show the signs of extreme nervousness near the doorway, looked uncomfortable. But the serpent didn't let it faze her, only fixed her gaze pointedly on the leader of the Furious Five.

At last she averted her golden ruby eyes and sighed reluctantly. "I know. I know you're right. But this runs counter to everything I am, everything I've been taught, you know. To give in, stop fighting, let someone else handle everything…"

"Well, look at it this way," Mantis cut in, sounding serious and determined for once. Tigress narrowed her eyes at him but let him continue. "If you keep fighting it, you don't just prolong the birth and put yourself through more pain—which I _know_ you get off on, but bear with me here—" Her nostrils flared, and Viper privately thought he was taking his life in his pincers. "—you also run a real good chance of hurting the cubs."

A long silence answered that, broken only by the crackling of the flames beneath the basin, and then the striped feline sighed again, hung her head, squeezed her eyes shut…and nodded. "Fine. We'll do it your way. But if word of this ever gets out…"

"Don't worry," the snow leopard reassured her, crossing to the bed and taking her paw in both of his. "D'you really think I'd ever allow anyone to think you were weak, love? Besides…even if we told anyone, they'd never believe us."

Tigress stared at him levelly; Viper didn't even see a muscle in her arm twitch, but suddenly Tai Lung was crying out in a fair amount of agony as her paw squeezed his tightly, beginning to crush the bones in it. "You might want to be rethink your sense of humor, _băo băo_ ," she said off-handedly, a little too sweetly. "In case you'd forgotten, it's _your_ fault I'm in this condition at all."

Snickering under his breath, Monkey opened his eyes from where he'd been perched meditating atop his stiffened tail and smirked at his insectile friend. "I _knew_ it! Pay up, Mantis!"

Before the healer could respond, or anyone else could cut in (except the panda, who gasped in shock and wheeled about to stare at the simian in stunned disapproval), the snow leopard breathed deeply in and out, clearly focusing his _chi_ to channel away the pain, then leaned in to fix his lantern gaze on his wife. "Oh really? Not only does it take two to _gutai_ , my dear, but I seem to recall someone being very insistent on my fetching birth control herbs for the longest time. So if this same someone forgot to take them, or Ti'en forbid chose to stop, then whose fault is that?"

Again, silence. Then Tigress actually flushed, flicked her eyes away, and released his paw. "I _hate_ it when you're right."

Mantis smiled beatifically up at the langur. "You were saying?" As his best friend grumbled and began fishing _yuan_ out of his pockets, the insect looked back at Tai Lung with a canny, knowing expression. "I gotta say though, Spottybutt, even though I took your side on that bet, you really surprised me. I never thought you'd be able to handle all this."

The master of the Jade Palace raised an ink-black eyebrow, then snorted. "Let me guess: you thought I'd be overcome by the sight of blood? Me, the scourge of the Valley, after all the kung fu battles I've been in, the warfare I've seen? Or that just because this is all new to me, I'd be running around in a blind panic?" He shook his heavy head.

"I don't know whether to be insulted or amused. I admit that not having been through this before, I am rather worried, yes. But I trust the doctor, I trust you, and most of all, I trust Tigress. Even if she fights tooth and claw against it, I know she'll do all she's supposed to to ensure a safe birth, and I know she can handle anything." The corner of his mouth twitched. "We're talking about the one who spent years of endurance training punching ironwood trees. What's birthing pains compared to that?"

"You do say the nicest things," Tigress purred. "I'd mention, of course, that if you think these contractions are so easily handled, I'd like to see you giving birth instead. Except the only one who could deal with pain as well as me, is you." She chuckled, clearly amused now rather than angry. Viper, looking from her to the rather challenging expression on Tai Lung's face, shook her head and groaned softly. They were always like this, baiting each other, competing with one another, showing off and bragging about their strength and achievements; it'd be sweet if it weren't so aggravating at times. _It's just like when they compare battle scars_. In which case this was one way Tai Lung would never be able to outdo her…

"If anything," the snow leopard said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts, "I'm more worried about the cub. What if…what if he, or she, is like me?" He hung his head, his voice growing soft and bitter, uncertain. "What if the baby has my darkness, my pride, my ferocious temper?"

Po reached over and laid a paw on his shoulder, smiling gently. "An' what if he's got your strength? Or your tenacity, your bravery, your drive t' be a hero? Ya don't know what's gonna happen ahead of time, buddy. No one ever does. What matters is doin' th' best ya can, teachin' your kid th' right way t' live, passin' on th' good about ya instead of th' bad."

Tai Lung gave him a grateful look, as did Tigress, and Viper felt her heart swell; sometimes, Po knew exactly the right thing to say.

The patient had just requested another towel for her sweaty brow, and Po had brought one over with a solicitous look and an encouraging smile, when there suddenly came the sound of pattering feet and heaving breaths in the hallway. Then a diminutive figure burst into the room. "Oh! Please do forgive me, everyone, the intermediate class was taking far too long to master their Lian Quan, and then Fu Xiao would not allow me to leave until I'd signed—"

Shifu broke off as he stared into the room—not at all of them, but at his daughter. Specifically, at the blood-splattered sheets beneath her, her legs locked open in the birthing position, and what lay between them. His eyes grew wider and wider, twitching violently, as his ears stood at their full flaring height…and then those blue orbs rolled up in their sockets as he fell forward and slumped down on the floor in a dead faint.

Everyone stared at this in absolute shock; Monkey looked scandalized, glaring at Mantis as if he were somehow to blame for the primate choosing to wager on the wrong outcome, while the doctor shook his head in amusement and Po and Tai Lung exchanged the same rather gleeful, mischievous look that said they'd remember this moment for the rest of their lives—and never let the Grand Master forget it.

But it was Viper who took action, slithering on her tattooed coils to close the door behind the red panda's unconscious form and then shaking her head before glancing back to check on Tigress's progress. "It's always the ones you least expect…oh well, somebody put a blanket over him. Now, I can see the head—a few more strong pushes, Tigress…"

* * *

" **Baby Be Brave", by The Corrs**

* * *

On the crumbling, ash-strewn ledge that fronted the upward-sweeping, curved cliff-faces of volcanic basalt, Tigress waited. She could both see and sense the looming presence of the rock formation behind her, its craggy heights shaped by eruption, erosion, and age into something very like the gap-jawed head of a dragon. In the choking clouds of steam and smoke, the depressing overcast of the gloomy sky, and the shadows which cloaked the land in this portion of Tengchong, she could still easily spy the glittering light gleaming and shining from the polished, roughly-hewn crystal which extended from the bottom of the overhang, like a dragon's beard. And she could hear the constant rumbling and churning, and feel the intense heat at her back, which both came from the fiery ocher and crimson lava spewing endlessly upward from the earth…rising higher, higher in its plume until it nearly reached the precious Heaven's Tear. Stealing it, as it were.

But now something else, something quite alive and with ill intent, was here to steal it for real. And she would not allow such a defilement of the sacred.

Not for the first time, she sighed and shook her head as she regarded the swarm of massively muscular, brindled canine forms as they leaped, charged, and poured up the ledges and cliffs extending from the barren plain below. She understood why both Tai Lung and Po had been so adamant about sparing their lives; this was the panda who had offered a last chance to Lord Shen of all people, even though the insane peacock had slaughtered one panda village after another in search of the one prophesied to defeat him, would have killed Bao and Li-Na as well if they had not already fled the destruction of the Jiangxi earthquake and gone on the run as bandits.

And the snow leopard would of course be the first to believe in the possibility of forgiveness and redemption changing those who had once chosen the path of evil. Like Po, when he had come to Gongmen with Shifu to rescue them, and convinced Masters Ox and Croc to fight (and what she'd give to have seen _that_ conversation!), Tai Lung had wanted to let the Wolf Boss and his pack go free once they had been defeated.

Unsurprisingly, so had Thundering Rhino, left behind at the Gongmen jail thanks to his rather severe injuries he had sustained from Shen's cannon—although at least, thanks to having learned from facing Shou Feng's Juggernaut, he had chosen to dodge most of its blast at the last moment (rather than futilely making a hopeless last stand), then surrendered. And considering the canines had all turned on Shen and defected after seeing the peacock betray them with that flung knife, even she had been willing to admit the wolves were not truly enemies any longer.

Except now, here they were again, led by their recovered boss (apparently the blade had just missed his heart), up to their old tricks. Although instead of robbing villages for the metal to make cannons, they were simply stealing anything they thought would bring in wagonloads of money, as well as legend and infamy.

Turning, she glanced at her sole companion, the only one she would need to help take out this threat…the one she would always want by her side, whether or not her husband or the Dragon Warrior were available to lend their aid. "Are you ready?"

Bringing his bamboo staff to bear, Master Shifu twitched his whiskers, then his ears, and nodded with a wintry smile that would have chilled anyone else's heart; to her, it only brought a fiendish, excited grin of her own. "Of course, Tigress. I was merely waiting on you."

She had brought the Sword of Heroes with her, strapped to her back, but she would not use it unless it became necessary; this was a personal challenge for her, a test, to ensure she was back on her feet and as skilled and masterful as ever despite having been taken out by Shen and his men (and, she had to admit, being out of the kwoon for nine months prior to that). She wanted to know she could defeat them merely with her own paws and feet.

Holding them poised now, the leader of the Furious Five narrowed her gaze, peering down at the surging wolven bodies rapidly approaching, growling and snapping, their one-eyed boss snarling orders as he loosened his axe in its straps and prepared to draw it. Then she turned back to Shifu. "The odds are stacked rather high," she noted.

"Indeed," the panda observed dryly, with a malicious twinkle in his eyes. "An entire horde of slavering, vicious, highly trained wolves against only the two of us. They don't stand a chance."

"My thoughts exactly," Tigress grinned. "Still, there's always the slender chance things might go wrong. And the last time I fought them, and their master, I came…far closer to dying than I would like to admit." She paused, choking up briefly as she knew she wasn't the only one; what would she have done if Po, her best friend, truly had been killed? Pushing it aside, as she could only think of the future and not the past, she went on. "So before anything happens, I'd like to tell you something."

"Are you…really sure this is the best time?" Shifu flicked his gaze toward the wolves, who had now almost reached the summit, and had spied them blocking the only path which led to the Tear.

"It's the perfect time. And it won't take long." Tigress stood up straight and tall. "After all we've been through up 'til now, I've come to realize something. Father, I like myself. I'm proud to be your daughter…and to be what you made me to be." She paused significantly, kept her voice under control. "Thank you, Baba. I love you." And she swiftly knelt to enclose him in her embrace.

It lasted only a few moments, yet seemed to last an eternity. When it had ended, the aged panda looked up at her, his eyes watery. "I am proud of you too, Tigress. So very, very proud." Running his tiny hand over one of her ears, eliciting a rough, throaty purr, he again brought his staff to bear as he leaped down to the broken ground, fixing his gaze on the first rank of wolves. "Now, as Po would say—though if you ever tell him I said this, you will be grounded for a year—"

"Of course," she replied mildly; just because she loved the panda like a brother didn't mean she intended to let this sort of thing go to his head and make him even more insufferable.

"—let's kick their butts." And so saying, Shifu leaped forward, seeming to hover four or five feet off the ground, his staff a blur of crescent motion in the air.

Eyes fixed on the Wolf Boss's scarred countenance—which had begun to show a trace of apprehension and uncertainty—Tigress leaped as well, her paws already flashing to knock aside axe blades and flails, her feet sweeping up and around to smash into shoulders, breastbones, and temples, her pulse roaring in her ears as loudly as the pyroclastic flow churning behind her.

"I wouldn't have it any other way!"

* * *

**"Sleeping Sun", by Nightwish**

* * *

_Here lies a warrior true to his name, a man who was a thunderbolt in battle. He has passed to Erlik-Khan's kingdom; may he be the protector there he could not be in life._

The words stood out starkly in the morning sunlight as the rising sun, shining over the peaks of Tavan Bogd from the east, bathed the face of the boulder which he had used as Vachir's headstone. He still marveled that they had been carved by him, that he could leave such a memorial for a man he had feared, hated, wanted to beat and murder and rip asunder, for the past twenty years. But it was undeniable: what he had learned of the Mongolian beliefs while held prisoner in Chorh-Gom, and which had been further expanded upon by Shifu the night before, had told him what to write...and now, after everything that had happened, everything he had learned, he'd been able to do it, and mean it.

Tai Lung was conscious of eyes upon the back of his head, as his master and father, and the rest of...the Furious Four...stood several yards behind him, poised and waiting to depart from the vale, through the pass that would lead back to Qinghe and the road to Hubei. He appreciated the fact they were giving him this time and privacy, and yet part of him couldn't help resenting the fact they seemed to otherwise not wish to spend further thought on grief.

Not that he blamed them, as someone they had actually known, someone dear to their hearts, had also died. And they had not been there on that ledge...seen the changes in the commander, heard his confessions and apologies, his anguish and regret and true repentance...things the snow leopard himself knew very well, as they had been his own constant companions almost from the moment the Wuxi Finger Hold had washed through his insane, enraged mind.

_"It was pointless, it was dirty, and it was damn stupid...maybe I was a little crazy and out of my mind...but it was still me. Don't try and cover it up... I know what I did... No matter how far or fast I ran, the past was always gonna catch up with me. Now it has...but I'm the only victim of it. And I'm gonna pay for it._

_"I was wrong. I went too far. I don't deserve to be saved. Everything that's happened to me, I've had comin' for a long time now, after all I've done._

_"No matter what happens...everyone's gonna remember and hate me as a monster."_

Tai Lung shuddered. Every word could have been said by himself, in some cases actually had been, if only in his own tortured thoughts. He'd had no idea. So blinded by his own arrogance and pride, his rage and desire for vengeance, his need to break free and claim what he thought was his, he had never once questioned who was in the right. Never bothered to consider what his warden might feel or want, why he had agreed to house the scourge and murderer in his armory fortress and thus keep himself and his men from being able to protect the rest of China, why he had treated his sole prisoner as he had. Because of course, Tai Lung was the wronged one, the one whose perfection was undeniable, his importance unquestioned, his need for adulation, glory, and power to make him finally escape his lowly, unknown origins and earn Shifu's love and pride more critical than anything or anyone else.

He was a fool. Heian Chao had made a fool of them both, used them both. And if Vachir had been easy pickings, how much more had the snow leopard been?

What was most terrible of all was that, at last, he was now free of Chorh-Gom in every sense, free of its shadows and terrors, its memories and corruption...at least, he hoped he was...and had the chance to set things right. To eliminate the one who had done this to them all, earn his forgiveness and redemption. But it was too late for Vachir.

And what of the rest of the Anvil of Heaven? It was true that many of them had at least approved of Vachir's actions, had egged him on, cheered, whooped, sneered and mocked the spotted cat they had come to see as theirs to do with as they saw fit, if not actually joined in on the torture. But what of the rest? What of all those who had only been doing their duty, had simply been obeying orders to protect the empire from the horrific beast they were keeping locked away from doing any further harm? Had they deserved to die? To be raised as lurching, mindless zombies, forced into an implacable, relentless parody of the unstoppable fighting force they had been in life? To have their bodies left alone to rot, while their spirits haunted the mountain forever?

Yet none of the others seemed to care. Viper, he could understand despite her seemingly endless capacity for empathy—she was too young to have ever seen them in action, only knowing of them through tales in the Valley, Oogway's scrolls, and the words of her illustrious father. Monkey was from Sichuan, too far removed from the Anvil's usual fields of action, and had probably resented any authority until the time that the Grand Master had turned his life around to one of protection and defense (although the way he had helped with the burial made him question just how uncaring the langur actually was).

Shifu...well, the red panda and the rhino had never had what would be called an amicable relationship, considering the years of overly-critical, waspish letters he'd had delivered to the prison, every word of which Tai Lung had heard bellowed from the guardrooms above. Having likely blamed the commander for his son's escape, he had probably believed any casualties to be the rhino's own fault.

But what of Crane, who would surely have learned of every one of the Anvil's glorious campaigns in his classes at Li Dai? Mantis when he lived, who had traveled the length and breadth of the empire for many years before coming to the Jade Palace? Tigress, who would surely respect and admire any warrior of such skill and unparalleled bravery, let alone a whole army of them? She at least had seemed to include their deaths in every litany she ever made of Tai Lung's crimes.

The rest? Had they come to see the Valley as their home and protectorate to such an extent that only the crimes committed there, the destruction and death of its citizens, had come to matter to them? Had the Anvil simply been so long out of public view it and its past glories truly had been forgotten?

Such an irony, that only he, the one who had suffered their blandishments, been put through such heinous, cruel treatment for year upon year by them and their commander, would remember, and regret. But despite everything they had done, it wasn't possible to live twenty years together (in one sense of the word or another) and not come to feel...a connection, a kinship, even before he found out what had truly lain behind their darkness. In a strange way, they had all been prisoners. Now he was free, but only the Anvil's survivors ever would be.

Vachir had been more like him than he had ever realized and probably would ever know. He had meant what he said, there on that ledge. If their lives had gone differently...if he had been given the Dragon Scroll, or if instead he had merely become a kung fu master and begun traveling the land as Mantis and Crane, Mei Ling, or those of the Kung Fu Council had done before him, it was entirely likely he would have crossed paths with the Anvil. As allies, as comrades. Vachir could have been a friend, a gruff and no-nonsense companion who likely would not have put up with Tai Lung's mordant sarcasm (at least not without giving as good as he got) but otherwise would have been loyal and true. And the rest?

Chuluun. He'd made absolutely certain to spare him, on his way up and out of the hellhole he never wished to see again, for he had always been the kindest and most understanding of his jailers, the one who seemed to have the most insight into him, why he had become and done what he had, whether he deserved another chance some distant day. The youngest of the recruits, from the last year of his imprisonment, who had always seemed more in awe of him than afraid or hateful. Anguo? Yes, that was his name. And Bayu, dependable Bayu who had actually spent many a watch out on that lonely pinnacle, keeping him company, even telling him jokes and stories to distract him from terminal boredom as much as his ever-seething fury. He was sure he'd kept them safe.

By contrast he had made certain to target the cruelest, most sadistic members of the platoon like Yan, or the equally sick and disgusting Bataar who, if Vachir and Chuluun hadn't intervened, likely would have made Mantis's surmise of prison rape come true. Yes, they were dead and he was glad of it, felt no remorse or shame in that.

The others though...he wasn't sure, but he thought he'd killed Niang and Shria...what about the medic, Cheren, who had so often prepared his meals and medicines whenever illness swept through Chorh-Gom? Qorchi, Gerel, Irwan...? He didn't know, he had no idea...

He felt dampness on his cheeks, reached up to brush away what he thought to be melting snowflakes, only to find tears running through his fur. Who would believe...but it was not merely the fact some of them had done nothing to him, had only been carrying out justice, had at worst only been indifferent, uninterested guards and in many cases had actually done their parts to make his time with them as painless and fair as possible. Like Vachir, they too could have been friends. He could have fought at their sides, driven out the barbarian hordes, even trained them in kung fu, passed on the great knowledge he had learned... _I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me...and I pray you will find rest.  
_

Tai Lung abruptly felt a paw on his shoulder and flinched, wheeling to face whomever had accosted him. It was Tigress. For a very long moment their eyes met, and he could see in hers not merely the caring and love which had finally begun to grow between them, but understanding. She knew.

With a sad smile, she nodded toward the snow-covered ground, and after another moment he realized what she wanted. Gratefully he nodded in return...and then together they both knelt, side by side, heads bowed and paws clasped as they once more sent up their prayers to the gods. If there was any fairness, if karma was on their side, these warriors would be freed from sorrow and darkness...and one day, the Anvil of Heaven would rise again.

* * *

**"Boudicea", by Enya**

* * *

It was the strange noise that came from where it should not—the scraping of something against the masonry stones forming the wall of the palace—that drew Po's attention, he would remember later.

The celebration in honor of himself and Tai Lung had been winding to an end, and although some stragglers remained around the sumptuous dinner tables or stood gathered in conversing groups around the beautifully-decorated chamber, the panda hadn't felt comfortable there at all. Despite the many heroic things he had done since attaining the Dragon Scroll, he still didn't feel worthy of all this praise and honor. _Which is a darn good thing, really. Otherwise I could end up like Tai did. Or at least I'd be a real annoying jerk no one could stand t' have around._

So when he'd thought no one was looking—except the snow leopard, who gave him a slightly put-upon look but then smiled and unobtrusively waved him away—he'd slipped behind Chen's back and headed out onto the nearest balcony of the immense structure. Leaning on the balustrade on both paws, he'd gazed out across the beauty of the Imperial City at night, with the light of countless homes and mansions, inns and taverns, and even the lanterns of pleasure boats upon the Canal and the riverways shining like fireflies in the darkness—rather reminding him, if he squinted and tuned out just how many there were, of his home back in the Valley. The city was everything Tai had said it was—the bad, but thankfully also the good—and out in the open air, with the wind ruffling his fur, away from the sycophantic courtiers and their disingenuous simpering, he finally felt relaxed and at peace.

But then had come the sound.

Cautiously, trying as best as he could to employ the 'stealth mode' he'd been learning and improving under Tai Lung and Tigress's direction, Po leaned over the edge of the balcony and peered down. An empty parapet lay a good forty feet or more below him, the top of a battlement-capped wall that ran from the palace to link it with the brooding hulk of one of the garrison watchtowers of Beijing. To his right and below that was a narrow stone bridge extending out over the rippling surface of the water, far enough away from the lights of frivolity and camaraderie that it, like the river, lay in nearly absolute, murky shadow. But there was no one in sight, nothing else moving or amiss.

He'd just concluded he'd been imagining things, either thanks to the late hour and his tiredness, or the fact his nervousness and insecurity at the dinner had actually caused him to lose his appetite (something which his belly was now punishing him for), when the sound came again. He turned back to the railing, glanced down—and became aware of a man only a few feet below him. A man dressed all in black, even concealing his face with a wrap so that only his eyes and mouth were visible—and with a dagger clenched in his teeth.

Po didn't have time to think (which was good, since even after all this time Shifu was still right about focus and concentration actually hampering his kung fu). He only had time to realize the intruder was slender and lithe—a mustelid of some sort, he thought—and then his body was already moving. Since he was already leaning that way anyway, he tilted his bulk and heaved it the rest of the way over the balustrade, legs flipping upward...and as he fell, easily swept the assassin off the wall into the empty air.

Even as he was congratulating himself on this unexpected move, the rest of his mind caught up with him and he swallowed hard. _Just 'cause ya got a lotta padding doesn't make ya invulnerable_. That bridge walk looked a lot farther away, now...

The other man didn't even make a sound, other than a surprised grunt as he lost his hold, which he guessed showed how professional the fellow was. In fact even as they were falling, the other's paws gripped at his shoulders and jerked, twisting them in mid-air so that his enemy wasn't in the perilous position of being trapped between his belly and the oncoming stones.

Air whistled past his ears and ruffled his fur, while time seemed to stand still—and then the impact knocked the wind out of him with a loud thud and groan. Only the muscle he'd built up over the last several months, the fat and fur that cushioned it, and his having learned...repeatedly...how to fall saved him from severe injury; that, and the fact the assassin still took some of the brunt of their landing. As it was, flecks still danced across his blurring vision.

He didn't have long to deal with this, though, since the black-clad figure was already rolling him over and writhing away, back to his feet—and though he was clearly dragging one leg, the competent way he held his dagger to gleam in the light spilling down from above made Po's throat dry. Getting his breath back and clearing his vision just in time, he scrambled up, dodged the first strike...and then pulled from its scabbard on his back the weapon he'd brought with him from the Hall of Warriors. As a mark of his heroism, he'd said at the time, something Tai Lung had raised an eyebrow at but allowed to pass with a proud paw to the shoulder and a firm nod of approval—but some inner sense had also told him he might need it.

The switch which changed its form was flicked in an instant, and the broadsword with its jade dragon carving flashed before separating into its component blades of a shortsword and his own dagger. The latter swung up without forethought, its metal giving off a satisfying, ringing clang as it met the incoming knife. His other paw was caught at the wrist by the assassin before he could bring the shortsword to bear, a surprising strength in the man's frame that let him hold off the bear's much greater weight, and suddenly they were at an impasse.

How long they struggled, he didn't know; it felt like hours, but he knew it had to have been only seconds since he first saw the man. With his other paw restrained, he fought one-handed, drawing on all the weapons training he'd been given, particularly by Tai Lung and Mei Ling—slashing, stabbing, slicing every chance he got with the dagger. Inside, part of him was squee-ing: _I'm gettin' t' fight with the Sword of Heroes! Oh yeah, who's on top now, buddy?_ The rest of him was as focused and grim as he'd ever been, even as he fought off a shiver of fear. If he failed to block even once...if that blade got past his defenses, a blade surely coated with some form of awful poison...

It was that thought, he believed later, that spurred him to action—for when his silent opponent had managed to twist his agile body sideways to evade the shining green blade, then struck upward with a deft maneuver, right past it toward his face, Po lashed out and up in a reverse crescent cut. This time it struck the knife right below the hilt, and more importantly the assassin's paw. Now he let out a curse at last as his hand, numbed by the blow, lost its hold and his weapon was sent flying sideways, right over the battlement into the courtyard far below.

Yet he recovered far faster than the panda would have thought possible, striking out toward his throat with his now empty hand—and he recognized the position of his fingers with horror: a move Tigress had shown him which at the very least would horribly bruise his throat, leaving him choking for breath...and at worst, was meant to actually crush his trachea, even rip it out if the fellow was precise and strong enough.

Po dropped his knife and grabbed at the paw, catching it just in time, and then they were stumbling back toward the opposite battlement, the one that overlooked an even longer, more deadly drop to the dark, quiet waters lapping at the landing. Back and forth they moved across the parapet, first one getting the upper hand, then the other, and he could see in the other's exposed eyes a gleam of fanaticism, something that went beyond fear or hate or even anger. He knew that something drove this man more than money, and that there was only one way to stop him. To save his own life.

He could feel the stones behind him cracking and crumbling as the black-clothed killer pressed him into the wall, felt the wind on the back of his head as he overhung all that emptiness. He could hear the assassin's teeth grinding...see the faint moonlight gleaming off of the blade of the shortsword that was still driven back and pinned along his side. His grip on that determined paw was slipping, its crooked fingers were edging ever nearer to his throat...appropriately enough, toward where a certain scar lay concealed in the black fur. In seconds more he was going to die.

Despair washed over him. He had no choice.

Taking a deep breath, he braced himself with one foot, even though the cracking of the stones behind him became that much more ominous, then brought the other one up to deliver a sideways kick that knocked the assassin backwards and off his feet. The lithe form tucked and rolled, coming back up in seconds, but in that brief window of time, he'd had to let go of Po's other paw—and on instinct, the panda drew it back, then flung it forward.

Those eyes were wide with a different emotion now, disbelief and agony. Frozen in place, the assassin let out a rattling, gurgling breath...and then he toppled over, the other half of the Sword of Heroes standing out from his chest where it had impaled him right in the heart.

Gasping for breath, every bit of him trembling and shaking, Po staggered away from the cracked battlements and immediately fell to his knees. He knew he was going to get sick, he couldn't stop himself...but even once he'd emptied his stomach, he was still shuddering, ready to collapse. He had to look away from the body that had once been alive—an enemy who'd been about to kill him, but a living being nonetheless. And yet he also _couldn't_ look away.

He was still kneeling like that, not knowing if he was going to topple over himself or wrap his arms around himself and start rocking back and forth, when he heard the thud of someone else landing on the parapet behind him, running feet...and then a very long, meaningful pause before a paw rested on his shoulder. "Good gods, man...what happened? Po? Are you...?"

Looking up in anguish and misery, he stared blearily at the deeply concerned face of Tai Lung bending over him. He marked exactly when his brother warrior blanched at just how traumatized he was...and the moment he understood why. Then the master of the Jade Palace was on his knees beside him, and for the first time where he was the initiator, the spotted cat was embracing him tightly.

"I know. I know, Po. It's all right. I was _exactly_ the same way, my first time." His voice didn't waver, he didn't even whisper as he admitted something so vulnerable, so against the badass image he'd worked so long to cultivate. "And this is good. As long as you feel this way...as long as you don't start to like it, or just as bad, not even care...you don't have to worry about a thing. You did a brave thing tonight. You just saved the Emperor. But it wasn't easy...and it _never_ should be."

Over his shoulder, the snow leopard called up to moving silhouettes on the balcony, summoning the Imperial Guard to come and take away the body, then start investigating—who he was, why he'd been after Chen, and why they'd been so woefully unprepared they might as well have been running around with their trousers 'round their ankles. But he never stopped offering Po his support, never took his paw away or moved from his side. A very solid, very warm, comforting presence.

Yet the Dragon Warrior couldn't take his eyes off the man he had killed, a man he saw was an otter, now that the face-wrap had fallen away during his death throes. Couldn't take his eyes from the upwelling of blood surrounding the shortsword that gradually slowed without a heartbeat to pump it any longer...its red hue appearing deep black in the moonlight.

_Him or me. **This** time it really was him or me. Had to do it._ Tai Lung was right, he'd done the right thing, and knowing the snow leopard had felt and dealt with these same feelings before, that he understood what Po was experiencing, meant everything to him. If Tai Lung had felt that way...if he could overcome what he'd done in his rampage and still be able to kill now, without becoming a paralyzed mess, then surely Po could too.

He was a hero. This sort of thing went with the territory. The very fact this so upset him was _why_ he should be the one to do it, it proved he _was_ a hero and would only do it for the right reasons, when it was absolutely necessary.

But he still hated it. And he wished to the gods it didn't have to be him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first shuffle is one I just couldn't resist writing, the birthing room scene is always comedy gold it seems. But I had a lot of fun subverting or playing with the usual tropes, as always. While it would have been amusing having Tai pass out, I thought Shifu deserved it much more. :P Also, when she was writing "Soaring Dragon", Luna and I had discussed whether anyone would faint during Mei Xing's birth scene, and while in the end she decided to have Sonam faint, Shifu was definitely a contender. I'm glad she didn't do it, so I could. ^_^ 
> 
> Second shuffle has two points of interest: I realized that another deficiency in ADL is that I didn't fully show Tigress and Shifu reconciling or gaining a true father-daughter relationship, other than the bit in the epilogue when Po was teaching her to cook. So that needed to be rectified. And while this may not seem like a typical father-daughter relationship...they aren't exactly typical, are they? For them this _is_ bonding time! Secondly, I wanted to make some other attempt to fit more of KFP2's plot into the ADL-verse. It doesn't work perfectly (and I feel bad about abrogating Po's canon mother's sacrifice to save him from Shen), but I think it still works pretty well all around. I especially enjoyed sparing the Wolf Boss (I liked him, damn it!), and the idea of Tai showing up in Gongmen at the end with Shifu is only made better by adding him to the offscreen convo which convinced Ox and Croc to fight—particularly considering the animosity I built up between them which was only grudgingly resolved in “Hungry Like the Wolf”. Knowing he got to witness Po's awesomeness is the icing on the cake. Finally, it was a difficult decision but I did conclude in the end that in my 'verse, Thundering Rhino gets to live, albeit badly injured (possibly enough he was forced to retire?). I loved Rhino (especially after I got to write him in the vignettes), so in the end I chose to spare him, since after all his sacrifice was a lot more senseless than that of Po's mom.
> 
> A study in contrast again for the last two shuffles. The one with Tai at Vachir's grave is yet another reference to Ilien's "Book of Changes." I really love the idea that a good number of my Anvil were also hers (though naturally I made sure that none of the ones she named who were likable were among those doing the torture). And I always felt bad that the combination of the nature of my plot and where Tai was in his head at the time made it so I had to dismiss the Anvil as faceless Mooks. A Million Is a Statistic, as understandable as it is for human nature, is hard to stomach, and I was pleased to finally be able to subvert it here. I realize a bit of his thoughts seem uncomfortably close to people who try and excuse the German citizenry before and during World War II, but the fact is, the members of the Anvil who were "just following orders" were the ones who only stood guard and treated him like a regular prisoner, not those indulging in torture, and while it's true many looked the other way, they weren't really in a position to do anything to stop Vachir when he could just dismiss or kill any who objected. And staying where they were at least allowed a few to try and mitigate his suffering, be there for him when he needed it. So it is right that Tai remember and honor them. As for Chuluun, yes putting him in the story means I have two characters with that name—but as you saw in the last vignette, that's deliberate since Vachir named his son after his friend.
> 
> Last shuffle was a scene that was pointed out to me before as one I really should have lingered on rather than glossing over (it was brought up during Jia and Po's dinner talk in "The Tale of Po and Jia"), and so now I have. Of course it too is indirectly inspired by "Book of Changes", since the idea of Po having to outright kill someone for the first time is one Ilien has brought up again and again. But yes, it was time to show Po again, show him in an important moment where he was badass but also very human, and show Tai right there supporting him, as a brother and friend does.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

" **As Long As You're Mine", _Wicked Cast Album_**

* * *

With a heavy sigh, Xun Chao paused to set aside his brush so that he could press his wings to the small of his back, which ached from the many long hours he had spent bent over his desk, hard at work. But he could not help it, his feverish determination knew no bounds and drove him on with eager, excited obsession. He was close, so very close! Glancing again at the aged scroll he had found within the palace library, he peered at the hanzi characters formed in Oogway's precise handwriting which he had been copying, struggling with the fierce grin that tried to form upon his beak. _Yes. Yes! At last I have discovered the key. If my interpretation is aright...if the secret thus unveiled before my sight bears veracity...then my Work will soon be complete, and my destiny fulfilled..._

A sudden motion from his chamber doorway, the rustle of soft, downy feathers and the shifting of silken fabric, nearly made him slip from his stool. Flinching slightly, he looked up and felt his heart in his fluttering throat, even as he frowned. "Xiwang?"

She stood watching him, her posture as perfect, poised, and formal as one of her elite station should be, her body clad in the rich, many-layered garments appropriate to both her class and the Jade Palace—a _shanqun_ of deep crimson and emerald with an attached _bixi_ , both it and the long, flowing skirt that extended several feet behind her adorned with embroidered flowers and woven ribbons, all of it matched by the diaphanous scarves around her neck and the complex, bejeweled ornaments of gold which drew her headfeathers up into her elaborately coiled hair. The only thing which marred this enchanting image was the pinched, pained expression upon the fair young girl's face...in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out from the flickering lamp that was his only illumination.

"I matter little," she said, softly. "To you, very little. I see that now, at last. Another aim has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

"And what is it that you believe has displaced you?" Chao rejoined—his voice as calm as he could muster at this interruption, at the twinge of doubt and distress he felt, even as he could not completely dispel a certain sardonic testiness.

"Passion," she replied instantly, without hesitation. "A zeal of pride. And above all, power."

" _This_ is the even-handed dealing of the world!" the falcon snapped, his voice rising with irritation deepening into towering resentment. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as suffering; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of the power that could alleviate it!" He could not stop his beak from clamping, his body from trembling within his robes.

"You dismiss the world too readily," the nightingale answered, gently, as if he had spoken with only mild disdain. She approached him slowly as she spoke. "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach, as if such judgments and denigration matter more to you than what is in the silence of your own heart. The goal is good, the dream is beautiful...but I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Power, engrosses you. Have I not?"

"What then?" Chao retorted. He would not hear her words, parse their implications; he refused to. As always, like all others in this weak and fettered world, she was too blind to see what glories he would bring to the empire. "Even if I have grown so much stronger and greater, what then? I am not changed towards you." Surely that was still so.

To his consternation, she shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our contract is an old one," Xiwang stated, unable to meet his dark eyes. "It was made when we were both simple and honest, and content to be so, until, in good season, with Master Oogway's guidance, we could improve our position and our ability to aid others by our patient industry. Yet now, you are _changed_. When it was made, you were another man."

"I was a boy," Chao said impatiently.

Now it was her turn to press her beak together. "Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you now are," she returned, a broken catch in her voice. "Yet I still am. You are gone, while I remain. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart...is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you."

"Have I ever sought release?" Something he could not describe...something that blended fiery agony with a knot of cold emptiness...chilled his heart, settled deep in his stomach.

"In words? No. Of course not."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of choice and chance; another desire as its great end. In short, in everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight! If this had never been between us," his beloved continued before he could offer opposition, and now she could look with challenging steadiness upon him; "tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"

Although he wished to deny it with all of his being, to tell her truly that her insight had played her false...in spite of himself, he began to yield to the justice of this supposition. But he was not yet prepared to surrender. "You think not?"

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered sadly, "Ti'en knows I would! But when I have learned a Truth such as this, in place of the Truth I believed lay between us, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. If you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose the weakness of love—you who, in your very confidence, weigh everything by what power it could bring you, how it could aid you in your grand design?

"Or supposing that you did choose me, if for a moment you abandoned your one guiding principle to do so, could convince me...and yourself...that this was your life's ambition. Do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? That you would ever after resent me for the calling you thought I had kept you from achieving, until that resentment became anger, and at the last, hatred?"

Her chest heaved with the force of her emotions, the golden and saffron feathers which quivered above her cross-collar standing in contrast to the pale cream and chartreuse which covered the rest of her frame. "Besides, I know what it is you seek, and I would believe it to be wisdom, were it not for the warning in my soul. The price is yet unknown, one which may be nigh impossible to pay...an exchange that is neither fair nor worthwhile. And I mislike this passion which has taken root in you, I fear where the shadow of the tree which grows from it will fall—across the empire, and yourself. No; so I do release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."

Chao was about to speak, although he knew not what he could have said to gainsay her—if anything could sway her mind, if he could dismiss any longer the honesty and truth in her reasoning; but gathering her wings about her, as if to ward away an undetectable frigidity to the air, Niao Xiwang turned her head from him...the cosmetics upon her cheeks now smudged by the tears which brimmed heavily from her eyes and trickled through her feathers. Slowly, with dignity and poise, the delicate avian who yet displayed such restraint and strength in her spine walked back to the doorway. There she paused and regarded him over her shoulder one final time.

"It may be—the memory of what is past half makes me hope beyond all reason that it is so—that you will have pain in this. Although I carry an equally intense fear that this shall be for but a very brief time, after which you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. Farewell, Xun Chao—or whoever you are now, whoever you become. May you find what it is you cherish, and wish to bring to the world. May you be happy in the life you have chosen...may it be a life at all!" And so saying, she fled down the hall in silence, save for one last sob.

For a very long time, the falcon stared at the darkened opening where she had vanished, one smoky-gray wing raised as he longed to summon her back, although he knew she would not come and there was nothing he could say. Then...gradually, he felt the pain burning in his breast fade away, quenched and dissipated by the coldness that grew to fill him utterly. Eyes flashing—and though he did not know it, beginning to burn with a sooty glow—he wrenched his gaze back down to his desktop, fetching up his brush once more and dipping it deftly, brusquely, in the ink.

_So. This is how it shall be. She, too, will leave me? Very well. As I have always known, as it was always meant to be, I am alone in my endeavor. Truth? None understand, or ever will. It is quite beyond them, and if this is but one more sacrifice I must make...I do not need them. They render me weak. And my Work must be brought to fruition. One day perhaps, when I am at my pinnacle, when all I have foreseen has come to pass, and the empire has achieved true peace at last, then she will see, then she will be mine once more. Otherwise...it matters not. It matters not._

Slowly, the room fell into silence again, with only the shifting of his robes and the sound of the brush upon the paper to disturb the pregnant stillness.

* * *

**"The Parting Glass", by Loreena McKennitt**

* * *

"Do you have _any_ idea what you have done?"

Zhu You Chen, Son of Heaven, Lord of Ten Thousand Years, Emperor of all China, looked up from the richly carved and beautifully polished desk behind which he sat, here in his private study in the Imperial Palace, in the Forbidden City...and sighed heavily, struggling harder than in recent memory to keep from letting his shoulders slump, his stern and determined expression from displaying the true anguish, frustration, and pain he felt. At what had occurred, what the man before him had done, what he would now be forced to do.

General Huizhong Hao, an Amur tiger like himself (and in fact his family and Chen's were related, albeit distantly), stood at full rapt attention, heels together, paws clasped behind his back, for all the world as if he were overseeing his troops on the battlefield or a parade ground. He did not wear his helmet but was otherwise still clad in the armor he had worn during his final battle with the Manchurians—the one that had been an utter rout, had driven the rebellious and recalcitrant natives back from the land they had tried to conquer, to nibble from the edges of the empire while they believed those in Beijing were complacent and distracted by other matters farther south and west. The armor, he could tell, was battered, still coated with dust and dirt, scratched and marred by the strikes of numerous weapons, and there were even still patches of blood drying on the steel. Clearly, the other feline had not been a mere observer hiding in a tent to oversee the proceedings, but had been right there in the thick of battle with his men.

But then, his bravery had never been questioned, was not the issue that brought him here.

"I believe, Your Majesty," he rumbled at last, breaking the long, uncomfortable silence between them, "that what I have done is ended the war decisively and completely. Driven the Manchurians back, convinced them to either rejoin the Ming or leave us in peace. Protected our people and saved the empire. Again. As I have done countless times before, and always shall, as many times as are necessary." His grizzled chin lifted proudly, even imperiously.

Utter truth, every word of it...and yet. And yet. "I was referring to something else, Hao." He stressed the man's given name firmly, meaningfully; on the one paw, it indicated the friendship and closeness there had always been between them, ever since he assumed the throne and was almost at once embroiled in battles to preserve China; on the other paw, it emphasized the decided absence of a title or rank. Both an appeal to sanity, reason, and compassion, and a subtle indication of his displeasure. "To the matter of Lieutenant-General Bao."

One eyebrow lifted; whether it was surprise, puzzlement, or even sardonic amusement which showed on his face could not be discerned, but when he spoke again it was with a clear irritation, even resentment at being questioned on this. "I fail to see why one traitorous deserter, no matter how useful he had been to me as a commander and strategist, and how disappointed I am by his choices, merits discussion. It is a private disciplinary action, already dealt with. Should we not be focused on restoring peace and stability in Manchuria, now that we have won? Before you called me back from the front, several local leaders were already prepared to meet with me for—"

"Truly?" Chen cut him off, unable to keep the coldness from his tone. "You see nothing amiss, no cause for concern?" He clenched his jaw and struggled with himself, just barely keeping a growl from escaping his tightened throat. _It is not **his** choices I am disappointed with—at least not the ones you held him accountable for. And this most certainly is not a private matter._

Hao was confident to the point of arrogance, but even he could not fail to catch his ruler's tone; Chen had never spoken to him in such a manner. Very slowly, the other tiger swallowed, his expression shifting to one of neutral blankness. "Well, I admit it is a bit...unusual. Not something I have encountered before. But surely you can see why—"

"Yes. Yes I can. And it because of this that I am stepping in to address it personally. Because I do not like what it says about you...something I could never have believed lay in your heart." Or had it been there all along, and he had simply failed to see it...had not wished to, because the man was so loyal, so otherwise honorable, such a valuable key to his military might?

" _Bìxià_?" The general sounded worried now. Offended, too, and certainly upset, but at more than this questioning of his character. "Forgive me, I do not understand—"

"No, you clearly don't. And that is precisely the problem." Again Chen sighed, and this time he did sit back in his chair, allowing his features to become as downcast and mournful as his heart. "I know the war has been long, that you have been out constantly in the field, that there have been numerous times when you had to make critical decisions swiftly and without consultation. That you have been under great stress, and yet managed to pull off one amazing victory after another. But surely you have not forgotten what I asked of you when the campaign began—what I implored of you and the consuls who conscripted men for the army. What I expressly ordered."

Hao went if possible even more still. "No, of course I didn't. But what has that to do with—"

Sitting forward, Chen slammed his paws down hard on the surface of the desk. Any other man would have leapt back, jumped, or at least flinched. The military man had too much nerve and willpower for that...but his eyes did widen, and stayed that way. " _Everything_. I don't care whether you believed his story to be false—and I know for a fact it was not, I have here the letter from Jiangxi, sent to me by courier from one Lan Duo, and corroborated by another sent by Chan Lei." Now Hao did flinch; he had obviously not expected there to be conflicting evidence to his impassive, dry report.

"And while I obviously appreciate how critical you believed this man to be to the war effort—nor do I dispute it—" Other reports from the north had painted quite the different karst landscape, revealed what a genius tactician and charismatic leader this panda was. "—that does _not_ justify denying him the chance to take care of his family. To see to it that they were protected, moved to safety, given every care to support and heal them, before he returned to your side."

Finally seeming to understand what thin ice he was treading upon, Hao seemed torn between disbelief, anger, and confusion. "But...but surely one man's family, when weighed against the entire army, the people of the empire, _all_ their families..."

"What happens to one, happens to all. What is true of one is true of all. If you would do _this_ to a man whom you claimed mattered so greatly to you, whom you trusted, admired, and guided throughout his career, what would stop you from doing it to the rest of your men? To anyone in the empire you felt was superfluous, less valuable, an obstacle to your plans or worst of all, simply in the way?" By the time he had finished, he was shaking...with fury, contempt, but also horror and distress.

The armored tiger swallowed again, much more visibly, and rather looked as if he wished there were somewhere he could seat himself. A bead of nervous sweat trickled through the fur of his brow, yet somehow he managed to persevere, if unsteadily. "I...I do see your point. But regardless, the man disobeyed a direct order, abandoned his weapons and armor, myself and his men...if we had not still had access to his plans for the next day's battle, we would surely have lost, perhaps even been overrun and slain to a man. Does that not...?"

Chen closed his eyes for a few moments. "Yes, you are quite correct. He deserted, and that must be addressed, should we manage to track him down and bring him to justice." For a moment a very ambivalent look crossed the other tiger's craggy face—smugness mixed with an ashen sobriety. They both knew the penalty for desertion, and as much as Bao had disobeyed his commander, the tiger _had_ respected him. To know what his fate would be...

"But there is more to this than you know." And he related the rest of it...the news that had begun filtering in from the southern provinces, of the pair of ruthless highwaymen who had begun to prey on travelers, who had robbed and murdered countless people in order to obtain the means for survival. How the few who had managed to witness their raids and escape with their lives had identified them as pandas—the only ones left alive in that province, after the murderous actions of that insane peacock in Gongmen, and the only ones who had had a restaurant, who had lost everything in that earthquake.

By the time he had finished, Hao looked even more incensed—but also horrified. "That is monstrous! How could he...that is _not_ the man I trained...I thought I knew—" He broke off, his hoarse voice becoming determined again, impassioned. "Yet that cannot be laid at _my_ feet! There is no possible way I could have known, or expected...that is the _last_ thing I wanted!"

"Of course not," Chen reassured him, even as his chest remained tight with so many swirling emotions. "I would be a fool to blame you for that. But it _does_ demonstrate rather well, I believe, the consequences which must be considered when anger rises. And that the fruits of karma are never what we believe them to be." He paused to let that sink in, then spoke slowly and deliberately. "No, what I do hold you accountable for is this: what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

He could see it when the realization dawned on the man, the implication made between his fate and that of the man he had condemned to a life of poverty, loss, and rejection until he succumbed to either death or law-breaking...a life in which the lessons of ruthlessness and bloodshed, no quarter or mercy given, intelligent plotting which allowed for no evasion or escape, charisma to lure in the unsuspecting innocent, could all be put to the most heinous and cruel of uses.

As the other man struggled to respond, the emperor spoke softly, almost woodenly, his heart sinking further and further with each word. "I cannot allow such an example to stand...or be followed. What my father taught me, the wisdom of Confucius, and the teachings of Master Oogway, all cry out against it."

He held up a paw as the crestfallen Amur opened his mouth. "And no, the fact the turtle is a sage of peace does not deny his words their value or truth. He was a great warrior in his youth, so he knows of what he speaks, has seen the results of his mistakes and worked to rectify them. And it is for peace that we strive...it is the peaceful lives I wish for my people...which you claim to defend, but which you took away from Bao...which matter more in the end, not these transient wars.

"I will not break my promise to the people, that I would look out for their interests above those of the nobles and elites who had ruled in Beijing for so long. I will not let others believe they can get away with what you have done, if they can excuse it with a higher purpose, the greater good, the needs of the many over the one. Or worse, simply because they believe my people are their lessers...that they can be sacrificed for such a cause, or even for nothing but a whim and their own comfort."

"I...I..." Hao's face had gone completely gray now and his paws were flexing spasmodically. "No, that isn't what—you couldn't possibly believe I would—"

"Can't I?" He gazed sorrowfully at a man he had once called friend, at the evasiveness in his eyes, the cringing that was most unlike one of his stature, how he licked his lips nervously and would not look him in the eye. "Who are you? I don't know you anymore. Bao did betray you and the empire—but only because you forced that choice upon him. You...you have betrayed _me_. And also yourself. Your honor. You thought yourself the superior man, and your _TongJun_ the smaller...but it was the reverse. You saw what you wished to see, and that is what led you astray."

How long the other tiger stood there, motionless, silent, and stricken with guilt and shame, he did not know. But eventually, the general lifted his head and somehow managed to gather the shreds of his dignity about him...to resume his stiff military posture...and then nod in acceptance. His words were just as quiet, underlain with a buried pain. "I see. Very well, then. For what it is worth, I am sorry, Your Majesty. Not for what I did, which I still stand by as the correct and proper thing, but for what came of it. For...making you have to come to this decision." He paused. "When will it happen?"

Chen stared at him, let out the breath he'd been holding. There had been a very good chance Hao would have not only refused to accept his judgment, fought against it with rhetoric and debate, but with force of arms as well. Would have broken ranks, turned against him, become one of the rogue warlords that had plagued Emperors in the past and surely would again. But it seemed the man he'd known was still there, had not been a veneer of goodwill and generosity, a lie to conceal his secret, elitist plans. "Tomorrow, at daybreak." He, too, paused. "Thank you for not...contesting it."

"And why would I do that?" There was no sarcasm or insult in the words. "Even if I do not agree with your rationale, or the relative merits of that panda versus the war and the empire, you are still my Emperor, and I still believe in the rule of law and order. I shall to my dying breath, even though that be at the next dawn. It is what our civilization is built upon, what I have fought for, and I would not undermine that for anything. If my death is needed to preserve the empire not only from the forces of conquest and chaos but from inequality and injustice...from myself...then I will give my life for that, too. Be an example in more ways than one. All I ask is one thing."

Unable to fight the sense of admiration and respect returning to him—contrasted by the anguish and doubt and imminent loss—Chen said, "Anything that is in my power."

The aged fur around his eyes rippled as they became pinched, his flesh crinkled. "Spare my wife and children. Please."

Instantly he responded, "I had every intention of doing that already, Hao. They will be safe and protected, as will your house and inheritance, your line and your name. Those honors will not be taken from you."

Tears stood in the other tiger's eyes at hearing that, and instantly, instinctively, he pressed his paw to his heart and bowed, deeper and more earnestly than ever before. "Thank you. You truly are wise and merciful, as always." Rising, he turned away and walked...slowly but with purpose...to the door, his every stride as measured and unwavering as ever.

Chen watched him go...and when the door had closed behind him, his tread gone silent in the hall beyond, the Emperor buried his face in his paws and softly began to weep.

* * *

**"Don't Let Me Get Me", by Pink**

* * *

_The world was dark around her...not merely cloaked in the shadows of night, but actually colored in the blackest of hues, even seeming composed of darkness itself. But this was nothing new to her—the world had always seemed dark to her, and that fact had never bothered her. It was the natural way of things, the chaos which so many foolish people tried to control by imposing order, instead of embracing it, drawing upon it for inspiration, strength, power. All that mattered to her was whether it would keep her from what she sought, if it would conceal the truth and deny her her prey rather than aiding her._

_And if it did, she would still overcome it. She always had, and she always would._

_She leapt forward without seeming to touch the rocky ground—so fleet of foot that she only had to touch briefly to launch forward again, or perhaps she was even flying in some manner. She didn't know, in this place anything could be possible. There was the faintest of light, something pearlescent and silvery like the moon yet as dim as the stars, gleaming off of something to her left—enough to let her see the looming shapes of weirdly-eroded cliffs and pillars of rock, the cracked expanse of stone before her that created hazards of impossibly deep clefts descending to places unknown and unknowable. But it also showed her the rippling shimmer which could only be water, sending back those wavering reflections._

_She turned toward it. In what seemed no time at all, as if she had simply dissolved into the shadows and reformed beside it, or as if the ground itself had sped along beneath her while she stood still, she found herself beside the flowing stream. And as she gazed down into its disturbed surface, she saw what she had known she would. What she had seen so many times since she came to this dark place. What she refused to admit had haunted her for many years before this._

_Aged paws reached out toward her, imploring. Those green eyes gazed at her with desperation, urgency, anguished yearning. The reflected lips parted, and the apparition of the long-dead snow leopard seemed to speak. "You're only hurting yourself, my daughter. Please. Please end this. Put a stop to your madness, let your vendettas go, and come back to your family."_

_Even before he had finished uttering the words, she was throwing her head back and laughing—high, cold, cruel. Somewhere deep inside her heart, a tiny part of her reared back, appalled by how insane and unbalanced she sounded. The rest of her loved it, reveled in it. "What are you blathering about? You never understood me, and you never will. Everything I do is to become stronger, better...to rise above all those who would pull me down and tear me apart. You would not help me. You only feared me, so I had to find it somewhere else."_

_Wu Xuan shook his head sadly, his expression mournful, tears glistening in those saddened eyes. "All your life you've hidden behind a mask. A mask that your mother forced you to wear, told you was what you needed to be to make her proud, honor her family. But it was never you. Why will you not take it off even now...when she has destroyed you?"_

_She couldn't believe it—he was dead, she'd killed him herself, and still he would not relent, still would not let her be?! **Why** could she not banish him from her head? "Lies! All my life, you've kept me from my true destiny! Every time I faltered, doubted...every time I let Mother down and failed her, it was because I listened to you if only for a moment. Well, I won't have it! No more! There's only one thing I want to hear from you now..."_

_Smiling fiendishly, flexing her paws until the claws emerged from their sheaths and pierced her palms, drawing blood that welled up, as black as the shadows around her, she snarled, "Tell me. Tell me how you got to Chun and Jia! How did you make them lose their fear of me?!"_

_That had to be what had happened. Why Chun, after years of being the perfect assassin, never deviating from her missions, always standing at her side, would dare to defy her, to draw her blade upon her to protect that idiotic goose, Ping. Why Jia, after even more years of staying pitiful and pliable, pressed beneath her thumb and always hers to manipulate, terrify into submission, and guide to always follow her will, would somehow break free and deal her a killing blow—literally stabbing her in the back. Nothing else could explain it. Her father had to have gotten to them, poisoned them against her, made them as weak and pathetic as he was. Well, made Chun that way; Jia had always been weak, all he'd done there was strip away what little strength and skill and cold neutrality she'd managed to instill in her youngest sibling._

_Unless...unless it had been..._

_She wheeled about, instinctively sensing another presence behind her, felt other eyes upon her—and there she was. Looming above her, above the quietly flowing stream, above the canyons and mountain peaks that composed these shadowy badlands. Even in the darkness she could see the rich vibrant hues of her embroidered robes now muted to deep grays...could see her elegantly-coiffed hair towering into the empty, uncaring sky, and those eyes that had always stared down at her imperiously, endlessly judging...now turned to soulless spheres of pure white. But not a purity of goodness, one of hollowness, inhumanity, something lacking any emotion but especially compassion and forgiveness._

_Instantly she bristled, and despite the figure's gigantic size, she screamed out to it—screamed her hatred, but also her brazen defiance, a cockiness that drove her, compelled her because to do otherwise, to discount it or deny it, would be to admit she had in the end become as weak as the rest of her family._

_"Yes! It was you, wasn't it?! You did it all, Mother! You've been conspiring to take me down since the day I was born! Even when I was an infant, you saw something in me you never had! Power! **That's** why you keep calling me a failure! **That's** why I was never good enough in your eyes. My power makes you **fear** me!" She laughed again, disjointed but also victorious. She understood, she saw it all now and for the first time._

_"You made Chun and Jia turn on me. I don't know how you got to them, but you did. And the Dragon Warrior...there's no way he could have humiliated me as he did, if not for you! How did you show that stupid, fat panda how to defeat me?!"_

_Wu Qing continued to gaze down at her—impassively, heartlessly, a shadowed monster who would never turn away, never cease rejecting her, dismissing her accomplishments because she was not perfect as she was. It only made her blood boil hotter, her teeth gnash, her lips writher back in a rictus of uncontrollable fury. All the poise and calm, the cleverness and guile she had so prided herself on and which had served her so well, was gone now, as fleeting as the snowfields when the sun burned hottest._

_"Well...it doesn't matter now. I've seen through you, seen through you both!" She stabbed a finger toward Xuan's reflection, which still watched her with a heart-wrenching look of pity that made her want to scream in rage. "You're still here, tormenting me, even after what I did to you. Somehow you survived it. You're stronger than I thought. But even when you're strong, you're weak—still trying to turn me from greatness, still prattling about love and kindness as if they can shake the world, make people give me what I want, what I deserve. As if they even exist and have any meaning!"_

_Twisting back to Qing, she reached down instinctively to her side and somehow was not surprised to find her Wind and Fire Wheel hanging at her belt in its usual place, its weight familiar and delightful to her. "And you! You've trapped me here somehow, it's some power you unlocked studying the assassins of old, just like Heian Chao! That is your most treacherous act, Mother—turning my own mind against me! Well not anymore."_

_Pulling her weapon free, she glanced back at the stream, taking great satisfaction in seeing the horror, the silent pleading, on her father's face—and the wicked gleam in her bulging eyes, the fiendishness twisting her muzzle into a caricature of a smile. "I'll do it, now, what I need to do. I'm going to break free of this prison you've both buried me in. I'm going to escape, track down Jia and Chun and Mei, make them pay for what they did to me. I'll claim Tai Lung for my own, the way he always should have been. No one will stand in my way...no one will stop me from dealing out death and darkness. No one will stop me from having all of China in my thrall. Maybe I'll even become Empress, wouldn't that be something?!"_

_"Xiu...please..." Xuan's paws clenched and trembled. "I love you."_

_Scooping up a loose rock, she threw it as hard as she could into the river, screaming incoherent syllables as his reflection broke apart...as it was blurred by her streaming tears. Whirling about with her weapon brought to bear, she saw now that at last Qing had moved toward her...still as cold and silent as the grave, as composed of shifting layers of shadow as the rest of this dark world, her paws lifted from beneath voluminous sleeves to reveal fingers that bore wicked claws...claws that seemed to lengthen as she watched, become daggers, then sickles, then scythes. But as they clicked and scraped against one another with a blood-curdling shriek, she only felt her heart beating in anticipation and grinned up at her._

_"I can't tell you how long I've dreamed of this moment. I hope you're ready, Mother. I hope you watch closely. I'll show you perfection. More perfection than you've ever imagined. I'll show it to you until you **choke** on it! I'll kill you...I'll destroy you!"_

_And she leaped toward the traitor's giant shape, her fire wheel slashing and slicing with wild, frenetic motions, striking through robes and shadows to tear at her essence with impunity. Manic glee filled her, and she threw back her head to cry out in unholy joy as she felt it shredding and coming apart under her unrelenting assault. "Better than you! I'll always be better than you...!"_

In the darkened silence of a single cell of Fēng Diān Prison, dimly lit by only a lone guttering candle within a small lantern, two figures sat facing each other. The oppressive weight of the stone-blocked walls was split by a grate of iron bars between them, separating each from the other but allowing both to have an unobstructed view through its criss-crossing lattice. Xiu sat unrestrained on the floor, her limbs having been folded by her jailers into a semblance of the lotus position, her paws resting with incongruous submissiveness in her lap. Her face, which ever since the Vault of Heroes had been locked in an expression of mingled terror, agony, and despair, was for the first time shifting...slowly but surely changing to one of confidence and triumph.

Across from her, seated in the chair that was the cell's sole furnishing, her ankles bound in locked chains and her upper body still tightly restrained by the loops and fastenings of her carefully-designed jacket for the insane, the now-wizened Wu Qing stared back right through her daughter, hair tangled and matted, eyes unfocused and glazed, toothless mouth parted in slack-jawed, drooling vacuity. And softly at first, then with greater volume, cracking and wheezing and giggling in high, reedy tones, she began to laugh and laugh.

* * *

" **Holding Out for a Hero", by Bonnie Tyler**

* * *

At the foot of the Jade Mountain...on the banks of the river which surrounded the peak, blocking the spans of each of the moon bridges which led over the flowing water...standing amongst the looming, magnificent statues which had once towered within the Vault of Heroes...the warriors of the Valley of Peace were poised and waiting. Ready as always to defend their home to the last, to battle with courage, strength, dexterous skill, and determination, even giving their lives if need be to ensure all those who lived there would be safe and protected.

The news had come thanks to the timely warning of a trio of travelers who had happened to be crossing the Thread of Hope on their pilgrimage to the great monastery of kung fu—a very familiar trio, whom Crane, Mei Ling, and Wu Jia had met in their travels over ten years ago, in Xinjiang to the west. The monk Achal Balaji, the former warlord Shou Feng, and his lieutenant Itultarak. What they had observed, to their horror and growing fury, was the approach of a great army from the mountain passes, descending upon the plateau fronting the Devil's Mouth so as to aim straight and true toward the rope bridge that would bring them right to the Valley...to its unspoiled land, its prosperous riches, and its helpless citizens.

They had succeeded—just barely—in making it across the last span with the invaders at their heels, who seemed so driven by greed, lust, and desire for conquest that only the need to slow as they moved from one span and peak to the next had kept them from overrunning the itinerants. And even when the swords wielded by the wolf and dhole had severed the ropes so that the wooden bridge had fallen away into the chasm, their pursuers had not halted...for to their greater terror, the army had revealed who, or what, had been driving them.

A great, immense shape clad in scales of gold and crimson, coiling and twisting like a festival puppet as it rose into a sky suddenly packed with pitch-black clouds riven by streaks of lurid lightning. A shape that was clearly not of this world, as its blazing vermilion eyes contained a hatred, a wickedness, a cruelty that could only be found in the underworld; its shape was that of a dragon with long, curling whiskers—almost tendrils—that danced in prehensile excitement as if they were alive, a creature which everyone knew was a mystical beast that could also only be found among the spirits; and it was surrounded by a seething, roiling fog of darkness...or did it ride it? Was it perhaps even composed of it?

None of them could say for sure...all they knew was it held a blackness like none seen in a mortal being, an impenetrable, flat, unholy shadow that could only be called demonic. And not only was this immensely powerful monstrosity driving the army before it, but before their eyes it extended its coils—and out of the surging shadow, a new structure formed to bridge the gap between the peaks. A structure which somehow supported the weight of so many armored men, weapons, and siege engines, but which was quite clearly formed solely of flickering, hissing, cackling flames.

Achal and his companions had rushed at once to the Valley, their fear and desperation and urgent need to bring warning and save the lives of the blissfully unaware villagers gifting them with a speed they otherwise never could have achieved—or perhaps the gods were with them, and had provided divine assistance? With no time to evacuate the Valley either through the river portage or over the road to the Musician's Village, there had been no choice but to house the panicking citizens on the Jade Mountain itself: in the palace, the arena, the barracks, everywhere space and defenses could be found.

And with Shifu able to identify, with a face so gray he seemed on the verge of either passing out or becoming violently ill, just what the creature was guiding this invasion force—the lord of the demons, Ke-Pa, somehow released at last from the prison where he had been held for countless thousands of years—there had been no alternative but to stand their ground, block the way with one great, unified line of defense around the mountain's base. The spirit of Master Oogway had said he would do all he could, draw upon the holy _chi_ that resided in the Vault of Heroes, the sacred hall of the palace itself, and other mysterious sources he would not reveal, to shield the temple and those within its environs. But the bulk of the fighting would, of course, be up to them.

But what a force they had assembled. And Po knew, he _knew_ with a prescience he thought had to be like what the turtle himself had often possessed in life, that they would win.

"There they stood," he said under his breath, green eyes fixed on the distant slopes of Wu Dan where he could already see the invaders pouring down like a river of molten steel and scarlet lava—their uniforms all seemed to match the fires of the demon lord who had made them his knife to plunge into the Valley's exposed heart. "The forces of good were rallied, standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip! They would let nothing past them. Although they faced incredible, impossible, _unbelievable_ odds, they had the hearts of heroes! And while many of them trembled and shook at the truly tremendous evil they faced, and worried at how many of them might not live to see the sunrise, they knew it was their destiny, nay, their _duty_ , to stand on the precipice of the Valley of Peace, to protect its precarious...peacefulness."

A loud groan came from his right, followed by the familiar sound of a hand slapping to a forehead. " _Really_ , Po?" Monkey exclaimed. "That's th' best ya can come up with? And after all dis time, ya _still_ can't stop stealin' your lines? I _know_ we heard that in a play in Beijing just last week."

"Besides," Mantis quipped from the langur's shoulder, "they're hardly as bad as all that. I've seen worse at my sister-in-laws' weddings."

Wriggling swiftly up between the simian's feet and the panda's, Viper made a scandalized sound. "Mantis! How can you _say_ that?!" She paused, then chuckled affectionately. "Don't you know Bao and Li-Na are renewing their wedding vows next week?"

The bears in question, meanwhile, were looking back and forth between all of them, a very confused array of expressions flitting across their faces—pride and awe at hearing how awesome their son's speech had been (before his words failed him, at the end there), bemusement, uncertainty, and a definite wariness, as if they intended to edge away at any moment.

"Are they _always_ like this?" his father asked at last of Crane, uneasily shifting his grip on the hilt of his _dao_.

"You have _no_ idea," the waterfowl breathed fervently.

"Well," Li-Na commented crisply, "I don't know if this is brash overconfidence, or if this just proves how good the Jade Palace warriors truly are, if they can afford to be so...flippant. But at least we don't have to worry about you not fitting in here, son."

Po briefly buried his face in his paw—which also served to keep the visor of Flying Rhino's helmet from closing over it. He was grateful, more so than he could ever put into words, that his parents were here at his side, ready to face down evil with him...that Emperor Chen had taken advantage of the Imperial pardon—which was allotted to the throne every few years as a blanket blessing to spare all but the worst offenders—to spring the elder pandas from Shandong and allow them to join him here, in the Valley. But he hadn't wanted them to see him, or his friends, quite like this…

As if reading his thoughts, his dearest friend, his brother, his teacher and his endlessly teasing tormentor, spoke up in that familiar sardonic drawl to his left. "Monkey's right, panda. After all this time... _what_ kind of Dragon Warrior are you? You've mastered all one thousand scrolls by now, or near enough to, you've saved hundreds of lives, brought down countless villains—and you still can't tell a good story?"

"Hey, that's hittin' a little below th' belt, don't ya think?" And it hadn't been _that_ bad. He'd gotten far better over the years.

"You don't wear a belt. Which may explain why those shorts of yours are perennially falling down, even to this day."

Po grinned, unable to resist. "You sayin' you've been checkin' out my butt?"

"You wish." Tai Lung snorted contemptuously.

"No, no I really don't. But I know what I do wish." He gestured with the Sword of Heroes toward the howling, ravening horde of mercenaries and soldiers—he thought from their manner of dress, as they drew closer and more details could be seen, that they hailed from the south, in India. "I wish that instead of takin' me t' task, ya focused on gettin' ready t' wipe th' ground with those guys." He paused artfully. "Unless, of course, you're plannin' on throwin' th' fight, so th' rest of us get a chance t' actually do anything."

There was a pause, and then the snow leopard snarled, low and dark, under his breath. "I'll have you know, tubby, that I have not thrown, nor will I _ever_ throw, any kung fu battle! Not even a training match or an exhibition."

Po held up both paws reassuringly, his armor clinking. "All right, all right, I got it, bud. No worries, keep your shirt on."

"I'm not wearing a shirt, panda."

"Was that supposed t' be a come-on line? I've seen it all before, y'know."

An even longer pause. "You know, I can still beat your flabby butt."

"And again with th' butt. Ya tryin' t' tell me somethin'? An' I love you too, schnookums." Somehow the Dragon Warrior felt _much_ better, though he allowed that Mantis's ribald laugh—followed by Master _Shifu_ 's chuckle!—probably had something to do with that too.

Taking the time to look around the circle of warriors poised for battle, the panda couldn't help but grin at what he saw and heard. Crane, he saw, stood back-to-back with Mei Ling, once more carrying the Ring Blades of Twin Weasels while his mountain cat wife was armed with her usual pair of sabers; not only were they ready to fight in tandem, each of their moves complementing and mirroring each other's, but even their words were finishing each other's sentences as they tossed out moves and strategies.

"—I was thinking we should lead off with a divebomb from me, strafing those soldiers with my blades. Did you want to—?"

"—ride on your legs again, like we did in Haojing? Maybe, _băo băo_ , but I think I might want to be free to do a Seven Ways of Plum Flower Punch—"

"Oh yes, that'd be quite effective! And that would also leave me able to—"

"—pull off that move you did against Lord Shen in Gongmen? I _really_ wish I hadn't been off with Jia when you guys took him out, I'd love to have seen each and every one of your battles." Mei Ling grinned. "Complete with 'Ka- _kaw_ 's!"

"I _never_ did that," Crane said stiffly, resentfully...then grinned in surprisingly cocky fashion. "Until then, and ever since."

"That's my husband," Mei said proudly, nose elevated. "But you know what I really want to see?"

The avian glanced sidelong at her, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"I want to see if you can use those Ring Blades the way you did against Heian Chao. And the way you learned back at Li Dai." She grinned winsomely. "There's even plenty of clotheslines here in the village you can use to do it."

A very familiar, dopey grin appeared on his bill, echoed by the one on Mei's muzzle.

Shifu was poised and ready with Oogway's staff, already glowing with golden _chi_ simply from the nearness of Ke-Pa and his appalling corruption; beyond him, Hu and Huo were next to each other as always, with Dragon and Leopard Fists held at shoulder and side, then Peng with his uncle's sword held as if he intended to use it like Ping did his cleaver. Beyond them were the Jiao brothers, Dalang and Shang, and Po didn't have to strain to hear them over the roars and howls of the approaching army—because the tigers were most definitely shouting at each other. Good-naturedly, he thought…

"When this is all over, I think I'm taking you to the red light district in Shanghai again." The Imperial Captain pursed his lips, then grinned with a naughty gleam in his eyes. "Maybe this time the _chāngjì_ won't push you out her door with your shortcomings hanging out; now that I've got three times the soldier's pay, I can afford to get you more time."

The chef smirked knowingly. "You gonna join in, if there are any guys for sale at that brothel? Or can Shang Jr. even come out to play anymore?"

Shang turned red-faced. "I'll have you know, I've _never_ had that problem—"

"I don't know…"

"I'm not _that_ much older than you!"

"Ten years, bro…"

"Shut up!"

"Old-timer."

" _Fuck_ you, Dalang, when I get my hands on you—" He lunged for his brother, but the younger tiger dodged nimbly out of the way, laughing.

"You mean _if_. You know reflexes are the first thing to go..."

Naturally enough, the Amur's superiors (and, from what Po could gather, bedmates—how exactly did that work, logistically?) were not far from him. And while both men were extremely muscular and well-built, with gleaming armor, shields, and weapons, he couldn't help noticing the fox, Ji Tao, was clenching one fist and had already begun to gather his own _chi_ which, unlike that of Oogway's staff, was a brilliant, eye-searing blue.

He also noticed that the panther, Liang, despite having been the softer-spoken and more laconic of the two when they had been introduced a few days ago, was now currently the one standing in the forefront—his free paw grasping the vulpine's huge, bushy tail (whether to guide or restrain him, he could not say) while he pointed the tip of his blade to describe a way through the village and up along a barely-visible road to intersect the descending ranks of soldiers, clearly plotting a path of attack. _Well whaddaya know. Looks like he can do more than just dredge up battle plans from musty old books!_ If they traded off leadership like that, they had to be a good team.

Speaking of leadership, a chorus of youthful voices (and one incredibly giddy feminine one) suddenly echoed from behind him, and when Po turned again, he saw Jia dashing forward at the head of a horde of young teens and twelve-year-olds—a mix of both their adopted children, and her half-sister and Crane's. "Come on, my little monsters!" she exclaimed, laughing wildly. "Let's lick these lychees!" The snow leopardess sent each of them dashing off to join the line—for while all four of the parents had tried to insist their children stay at the Jade Palace with the villagers where it was safe, none of them would hear of it. And since they had all been trained in kung fu, and were old enough now…

As the panda was shaking his head— _You are still so darn weird, Jia. An' don't you **ever** change!_—the former assassin withdrew a pair of weapons he had never expected to see in her paws again...Wind and Fire Wheels. Meeting his gaze with her violet eyes, she stood up straight, squaring her shoulders—he knew how much it meant to her to be able to still use the assassin's weapons, but this time for a good cause.

Yet when she moved up next to him and leaned in close to whisper in his ear, what she said had nothing to do with how she'd come to terms with her mother and her heritage in the past few years. "You'd better make it through this alive, baby bear. 'Cause if you do, the reward'll be, well…"

He didn't know which embarrassed him more, even after all this time—the absolutely scandalous but arousing things she whispered next, or the very firm and familiar slap she planted on his rump for luck.

Hurriedly Po giggled rather disjointedly and turned to look to the last arc of the circle, where Shen Yi stood back-to-back with Chuluun; the latter, even as he was clearly ready to launch into action alongside the bovine who was his dearest friend, was keeping up a running litany of plans for the upcoming combat to his master, Tai Lung.

"Now then," the snow leopard counseled rather insistently, "since we don't know how many of these men are under this demon lord's control, we have to assume they'll act like usual mercenaries when confronted with a superior fighting force. But they'll also likely be smart enough to catch on to our tactics unless we hide what we're up to. So—"

"You can count on me!" the rhino bellowed, thrusting his chest out belligerently and adopting a Dragon stance. "I'll take this side of our fighters and plow up the mountainside, out of sight below the ledge. They'll never expect that, or see us coming 'til we're right on top of them!"

Tai Lung stared at him, aghast. "What? No, that'd be suicide! You should—"

"Nah, you're right, those cliffs are too unstable. Okay, we'll go the other way, up the riverbank, so the forest hides us, and then charge 'em as soon as they come down off the road!"

"That's not what I meant either! Why don't you—"

"What? Hide among the houses in the village, then leap out on them from the alleys as soon as they pass? Or would off the roofs be better?" Chuluun grinned at him with shining, simple sincerity.

The snow leopard pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. "Would you _please_ let me get a bloody word in edgewise and outline a plan for you that _isn't_ just 'charge straight in and hit them'?!" Groaning softly, he shook his heavy head. "You are a problem to me…"

From the rhino and Yi's other side, Shou Feng looked up from the expression of obvious hero worship on his muzzle as he gazed at his leonine master; he had clearly taken his new discipline and faith to heart, and loved the monk for it. His countenance turned rather bleak, however, as he frowned toward the demonic smoke and flames which curled and poured upward around the nearest sugarloaves. "That last suggestion of his was not actually that foolhardy," the wolf said; unsurprisingly, despite being shown the error of his ways and guided to a path of redemption and penance, he was still rather diffident around Tai Lung.

"But you are also correct: even without this spiritual force guiding him, the warlord leading this army is much like I was, once. I saw him, as we fled ahead of him across the ancient spans; he is a tiger, bigger than any I have ever laid eyes upon until returning to the Valley." His eyes flicked to Shang, still bickering humorously with his brother. "Of a far darker, warmer shade of orange than Master Tigress, and with stripes of dark brown rather than black. From his garb—a kilt of rich ocher red, armlets and rosette earrings of gold and gems, and a magnificent ruby neckpiece—I would wager he is a prince of his realm. From the pata he wears, I am certain he is a formidable and powerful warrior. And his eyes...they are so dark, like black marble, empty of any mercy, compassion, or forgiveness...any emotion at all."

Feng swallowed hard. "I do fear that he is an enemy like none you have faced before. And I cannot tell whether he is such because this Ke-Pa has possessed him, or if he was that wicked to begin with. I am not even certain...which of them truly commands."

All of them fell quiet at these words, the amusing and friendly exchanges dying into an uncomfortable, distressed silence at their implications. Which would be worse, a warlord such as this inhabited by such a dark force, or one with a strong enough will that he could actually control it?

Beside the wolf, Achal reached out to set a heavy but gentle paw on his disciple's shoulder, clearly doing all he could to reassure his charge in the face of such despair. In the distance, the sounds were growing louder, closer...the dust raised by the charging men was blending with the demon's impenetrable cloud of shadow, rising to eclipse the Valley and cut it off from the outside world...from life, from hope, from existence itself, it seemed.

Yet into this bleak, unsettling darkness, Monkey's words suddenly sounded...soft, a bit reedy with his rasping, constricted breathing, but growing more brave and bold with each word. "We still can't give up hope. Remember Gongmen? Gotta be strong. Hardcore." He smiled at Tigress, who of course had stayed silent alongside Tai Lung, neither joining in the jocular banter nor planning their attacks...only eyeing the enemies through slitted lids that calculated each of their deaths as an indisputable fact that simply had yet to be accomplished.

"Count us in," Tao spoke up without hesitation in that unusually deep voice of his. "We're just happy to be fighting alongside one another again, no matter what the odds are. Wouldn't have it any other way. Right?" He grinned meaningfully at the panther as well as Shang, and received heartfelt, affectionate gazes in return.

From the langur's shoulder, Mantis chimed in again. "Well you know what I always say. It's not the size of the insect in the fight, but the size of the fight in the insect."

"And I know what I say," Bao cut in. "None of us are gonna fall to these bozos, any more than we have to the Mongols and the Huns. 'Cause we're gonna fight to our last breaths, we're warriors, with souls of steel and hearts of silver."

Po puffed out his own chest at hearing this, fighting back the tears that formed in his eyes; from the way a rose-pink light shimmered and beamed brightly outward from the Peach Tree's promontory high above to cut through the oppressive blackness, he didn't think he was the only one pleased by these inspiring words. When he glanced at his brother warrior, he managed to put on that devil-may-care, sly smile that always came to his lips when he was ready and willing to face the most dangerous challenges, the most difficult kung fu moves.

"Dad's right. This'll be a walk in the Emperor's garden compared to what we've been through. Right, Tai?"

The snow leopard grinned back at him, slowly but with increasing confidence, as his dark purr filled his voice. "Damn straight, Dragon Warrior. Though I should warn you, I'll be all the way through that garden and sitting on this pathetic Indian kitten long before you are."

"Oh really?" Po laughed, beginning to feel a familiar glee bubbling up inside him, wiping away the fear and worry and paralysis that had begun to wash over him at hearing Feng's words. "Don't I remember ya sayin' somethin' about 'he who gloats loses the upper paw'?"

Tai Lung chuckled, performing a kung fu bow to acknowledge that well-placed strike. "Well if you're going to be like _that_...why don't we just see whether you're as good at bringing down the bad guys as you are at nabbing dumplings?"

A thought came to him as he, too, found his mind going back to that playful, lighthearted game atop Wu Dan, and what else they had learned there. "I betcha I _am_! Bet I can wash that tiger's feet right out from under him with my Water!"

"And I," the master of the Jade Palace growled menacingly, "can heat up this weapon of his with my Fire until he's forced to drop it. Or better yet, it burns his bloody fur off."

"It'll be pretty hard for these guys to do much to us," Po observed, "if we keep hitting their weapons from underneath, so they get knocked out of position, or outta their hands, right up in th' air…"

"If there's ever a time to cheat," the spotted cat agreed, "it's now."

Nearer than ever now, the army poured onto the grassy plains and farm fields surrounding the village, and the front ranks—either that confident in their skill or that pugnacious and bloodthirsty—were already firing their first waves of arrows. Arrows which contained a good number of flaming missiles among them. Each of the warriors acted instinctively to deflect, break, or otherwise blunt these attacks—Shifu's whirling staff, Crane's Ring Blades, Shang's swords, and Chuluun's rock-hard forearms alike made short work of the arrows, while gusts of dampening _chi_ from Po, Tao, and Mei Ling put out their fires.

Tigress, of course, had been set to easily catch the arrows coming in toward her face, just as she had with Shen's soldiers in Gongmen—but before she could do so, a pair of war fans intervened, sending the missiles harmlessly into the river. One of them, painted with dragons, was instantly recognizable from a certain battle on Wu Dan, but the other was just as familiar—the gleaming silver, mystical kung fu artifact from the Hall of Warriors that had once been borne by Lady Wind Song, the Shadow of the Moon...one which legends claimed could cut through stone. Twisting her head to the side, the leader of the Furious Five let out a disgusted sound, though she couldn't completely hide her grudging admiration at the move. "What do you think you're doing?"

Poised on the balls of her feet, green eyes gleaming above her face-wrap, black cloak swirling about her, Wu Chun—who had also, to her sisters' delight, received the Son of Heaven's pardon—smirked. "Saving the jerk who sent me to prison. Now, are we going to fight, or just stand around pointlessly maundering all day? Winning may be boring, but we haven't won yet."

Shaking his head in wonderment—he never would have believed such a group could have fought as allies, over a decade ago—Po glanced down the line of warriors...to where Viper was coiled around the Invisible Trident of Destiny and Monkey bore Jin Hu's Iron Fist...back to Tigress, who wore Dog's Ninja Weapons, and Tai Lung who carried the Golden Spear.

He grinned excitedly as he saw Crane gesture, his feathers shifting in intricate patterns as the Ring Blades twirled and spun around his wings, and before his eyes the _chi_ the waterfowl had been studying with Master Shifu manifested—making the giant stands of bamboo outside the village, the branches and roots of the great oaks and redwoods on the hillside slopes, any form of wood and plant life to be found in the Valley, reach out to attack the invaders...coiling, snapping, battering, sending them flying, toppling to block their path or crush them…

"I _love_ you guys," Po cried out jubilantly, with more warmth and passion than ever before.

Above, the draconic form of Ke-Pa surged down from the mountain peaks, letting out a roar that would chill anyone's blood. Fire exploded from his gaping maw, curling in great searing prominences against the stormy, blackened skies, claws gleamed with terrible sharpness, and a rippling aura of _chi_ burned in the air around him, radiating out toward the Jade Mountain with twisted malevolence. "Prepare yourselves! Prepare for the coming of Akshatha Rao, he who freed me from my prison and thus receives the ultimate glory and honor! Prepare to meet your new Emperor, just as I shall rule the entire world in eternal darkness!"

_As if_. And he didn't even mean just the likelihood of these two and their minions winning; no matter how savvy this tiger was, how much he believed himself the master and how powerful a warrior he was, there was no way Ke-Pa would allow him to live once he had served his purpose—and if he did, it would only be to rule this world of shadow and demons as a figurehead, a puppet emperor.

Lifting the Shield of Fire Monkey Pass on one arm and the Sword of Heroes in his other paw, the panda who had once been only a noodle chef but who was now so much more...because he had _believed_ he was special...struck a Leopard stance. To his left, he spied Achal—bare-chested as always for combat, but still wielding his walking stick in one paw—strike a similar pose, but closer at hand he felt as much as saw Tai Lung turning to face Tigress, concern on his blocky, age-grizzled face.

"This is going to be the most epic battle we've ever been a part of, love. We'll have to use every kung fu move in our repertoires...fight with every weapon...use every drop of _chi_ at our disposal. We'll be facing fanatical warriors, a power-mad tyrant in the making, and oh by the by, a demon lord. It'll be very fierce, very long, and very, very dangerous."

A low chuckle answered him, and when Po glanced that way he wasn't surprised to see a wry look upon the striped feline's features. She gestured with one of the _dao_ she carried, and with a wave of her own _chi_ , the metal to be found in the very earth rose upward in sharpened spikes all along the riverbank, ready and waiting to catch the charging mercenaries upon them—or even to fly out of the ground as if launched from catapults, for all he knew.

"Don't worry," Tigress said soothingly. "I'll protect you."

First Yi, then Hu and Huo, then finally Peng, started laughing.

And then as one, each of the warriors...the students of many years of training and those still learning, those who had always known they would follow the ways of kung fu and those who could only dream until their lives were changed forever, the brave and the wise, the redeemed and the pure—heroes all—surged forward against demons and invaders in turn as they poured across the Valley into the village...a wave of evil and darkness that would only crash uselessly against them, against the statues of the ancient masters, against the Middle Kingdom itself, until it washed away into nothing.

_Legends would tell of legendary warriors whose kung fu skills were the stuff of legend…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first shuffle was inspired by, and rather heavily based on, a scene from Charles Dickens' _A Christmas Carol_ , specifically the moment when Isabelle leaves Scrooge forever. Aside from the fact the novella is in the public domain, I wanted to properly express both the antiquity of Chao's time period and the tragic but cruel nature of what happened to Chao, and between him and Xiwang, so I felt the words of that conversation (tweaked and expanded by me in numerous ways) would convey what I wanted to say better than ones of my own. One last gasp of Chao's humanity, and a scenelet to bridge where we last saw Chao in the final vignette and what he would become later. Also, a point of interest: the reason for my choice in Xiwang's species, aside from its beauty and being a native of China, is the famous Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, "The Nightingale."
> 
> The second shuffle is one prompted once again by my friend and reviewer Samadhir, who had noted in a review for the vignettes that he would like to have seen more of General Hao, in fact this specific scene. I agreed with him, since it hardly seemed fair to show his actions and words which contributed to Bao's fall from grace without showing the consequences or his reaction to that. And let's just say I remain conscious of making sure characters are well-rounded, that just as heroes can have flaws, villains or people who oppose heroes/cause conflict in a story can have admirable and virtuous qualities. That even those who look down on others can see the error of their ways, and there is more to them than their prejudices. So I had him respect and understand Chen's wisdom in the end (several of his sayings, including the rephrasing of the Golden Rule, are indeed from Confucius) and go to his fate with dignity.
> 
> Third shuffle was a challenge, getting into the mind of the insane, but once again I had assistance, this time in the example of Xiu's antecedent Azula from _Avatar: the Last Airbender_ , specifically as part of the arc with her and Zuko looking for Ursa in the comic book "The Search". Xiu has issues with both of her parents, which is why they both appear to her rather than only Xuan, and the reversal of the characters' fates is why Xiu and Qing have the opposite appearances and restraints (or lack thereof) as Azula and Ozai. I also incorporated a lot of the imagery of Ping's nightmare from the holiday special. And this should give you an answer as to whether Xiu has any remorse or regrets, and how much chance there is she could ever change, like the other villains have to various extents...
> 
> Final shuffle was my last chance to show all the characters you've grown to know and love, including my own creations, so I'm not only showcasing their humor, personalities, and relationships, but making lots of references and callbacks. Also making appearances are yet more references to Ilien's "Book of Changes" (Tai's line to Chuluun is, in amusing irony, one her Vachir constantly said about/to Tai himself, and Akshatha finally shows up to testify to how much of a heartless bastard and immoral monster he is by freeing/making a deal with Ke-Pa); Chun quoting some familiar Mai lines from _Avatar_ ; and Tigress and Tai Lung aping the final exchange between Sinbad and Marina in DreamWorks' movie about the titular thief. 
> 
> I also had to have fun teasing the TaiPo shippers again, while the moments where Crane and Tigress show off their _chi_ training is simply me finally being able to fulfill what I hinted at and promised in ADL: since Shifu had said all those at the Jade Palace could learn elemental _chi_ , and we'd already seen Fire, Water, and Earth... I rather thought Wood and Metal fit their respective personalities. FYI, I see Viper as another Water, while Mantis would be Metal and Monkey would be Earth. As for Ke-Pa, you can obviously assume the way he was freed and where he and his demons were imprisoned is very different in ADL, what with both the Jade Palace and the Peach Tree still present, but in all other respects I wanted to make reference to what I consider one of the better stories and villains in the TV series even as I made them my own. 
> 
> As for the Hero's Qi...even if the largest repository lies with the Dragon Warrior, it surely flows through all of the palace's fighters, perhaps even a touch in each of their allies. In which case, I hope you don't feel too worried by the Bolivian Army Ending I left you with...because you have to know that of course they're going to win, right? ^_^
> 
> So, that's a wrap! What a long road it's been...I thank all of you for caring, reading, responding, and appreciating what I've endeavored to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Text copyrighted 2010-2015. Originally posted on Fanfic Dot Net. Enjoy!


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